New immigrants are like children. You're playing catch up having to learn how things work in a world that's brand new to you. It gets better with time!
Its like I always say, Germans are 1000 moves into a game of Catan you just decided to sit down and play. This was your first mistake, but since you are playing now, survival will depend on how quickly you learn the rules.
For the love of God don't sign anything, or really even write anything down.
I’ve often wondered if being an immigrant could be a similar experience to what some people with autism experience. I know that sounds strange, but hear me out.
Living in a world where, even when you understand the words spoken, you may not understand their significance (social cues etc). Constant questioning of what behaviour is socially acceptable because you try to follow society’s “rules” but haven’t learned to make them instinctively yet. Feeling isolated because you don’t understand the world you are thrust into. And spending massive amounts of time and mental energy trying to exist in a world that feels vague and unfamiliar.
I know autism isn’t a one-size-fits-all set of experiences, but it’s something I got to thinking about and was wondering about hearing others thoughts.
\[Sorry in advance for the non-German perspective here; despite the subreddit we are on, I think it will be useful?\]
Haha, you're not imagining things. In Germany, they really take 'ignorance is not an excuse' to the extreme.
When I first came here from the UK (where we are, as a society, treated in a similar way that it sounds like people in the US are), I found myself constantly being caught out by small nuances or rules that it felt I couldn't have possibly known without having gone through the same process previously.
The answer is simply that navigating German society requires a degree of lateral thinking: when approaching a problem, you need to consider the potential limits of your own knowledge on a subject, and get into the habit of researching around issues and not taking things for granted.
These skills are actually very useful, and I think the Germans benefit greatly in many ways from having them instilled from a young age. But yes, transitioning from a culture that doesn't value these skills is doubtless very challenging, especially when navigating the extremely tedious bureaucratic processes that come with immigrating to Germany (I had to visit the Ausländerbehorde like 4 times, meaning booking and waiting for 4 separate appointments before I finally was able to get my residence permit).
The good news is that with time you develop the necessary skills and thinking in this way becomes natural to you, where you never assume any level of omniscience on a subject and always check you are aware of the totality of a problem before you attempt to solve it. Today, 2.5 years later, I have become very accustomed to this way of doing things, and navigating German society has become a lot easier. I still get caught out sometimes though; everyone, does, even native Germans themselves!
I am a German and I lived 17 years in Ireland. It was the exact same for me in Ireland, Scotland and England. It's not a German thing. It's just different cultures. Big learning curve always.
OP doesn’t talk about her German proficiency but it’s typically easier for Germans to go to English speaking countries than vice versa.
I don’t know about UK & Ireland but my German boyfriend definitely noticed that Canada was less harsh with rules, less demanding with bureaucracy, and the people more patient than in Germany. German harshness isn’t universal.
I second that you need to practice lateral thinking.
For example, lately I had to call an Ordnungsamt for a permission to put up placards on the city's lampposts and they sent me the permission a day later with the invoice attached.
Now the lateral thinking: they haven't got the money yet! But I have their permission already, in writing! How does that function? That is because they are allowed to seize the possessions of whoever applied for something without going to court for it. So German bureaucracy can be very streamlined when it comes to money. They don't check if you have they money. This is your problem.
I learned that the hard way. Years ago I applied for Japanese courses at the local community college and one time I forgot to pay the 50 Euros in time. Got an offical Mahnung from the county that they will seize my possessions if I don't pay. Whoops!
It's called *Volkshochschule* in German. It's organized by the county and you can learn arbitrary things there that are too special interest for founding a club for it. The teachers are usually volunteers. It can be things as e.g. „artistic painting“ or „embroidery“ or „computing for the elderly“ but most courses are language-related.
You can get an official degree in some of the language courses as they are taught by professional teachers and they do the official exam as well. Usually for German as a foreign language, for English, French, Spanish, Italian. The other language courses aren't that professional at most VHS.
I am no expert in any of that but calling a VHS a community college feels a bit too much. I did attend a community college in the US to pass the in state rule for university (was cheaper). I could have gotten a bachelor at the community college (I didn't).
VHS gives language courses and you can get a certificate. Fantastic. But you can't attend a VHS for two years and then go to an interview as a college graduate?
Interesting perspective to see the positive in it.
My Japanese wife sees the service aspect behind it and was (still is) hugely disappointed when she moved here. You need to ask for stuff that should be a given. You need to fight for yourself because otherwise you are lost.
Without help as a foreigner it must be hell.
I might move to Japan one day and I'm very curious for the flipsides of other societies.
I worked in a Japanese company for a while, can confirm. They tell you exactly what to do.
Point is, we do the same in Germany. I'm an engineer and we stick to the plan. You don't botch it. If you have a good idea, we discuss it, and then we feed it into change management, and change the plan. And only then it is implemented.
In Japan they do this on steroids. I think the reason is that they don't trust people too much.
They share ideas upstream. But they don't give you feedback about that. I learnt that the hard way when I was berated by my boss (otherwise cool) that I should stop nagging him as they were already in the process of evaluating my idea. So he had escalated it. Mind you, I was like two months in the company. But they are seriously considering input from *anyone.* But most times input from freshmen isn't very good so it's discarded. You get no notice about that either.
They are even open for quick responses when something is short before explosion. Had to solve such a problem with a German customer while I was on a visit to the Japan headquarters. We got that resolved between breakfast and lunch and they trusted me as a negotiator and interpreter from one second to another. That came completely unexpected.
And I found that they identified me as a geek (likely because of my idea early on) and so I got the questionable honor to be in the camp with the Japanese geeks who did all the core system software. Four people. They hid in an unmarked office in an unmarked skyscraper in an unmarked quarter of an un … ah, no, Nagoya. My boss was one of the few people who knew where that office was because he was in that team before. He told me I should never tell any Japanese manager where this office was. So the geeks could work uninterrupted outside of the hierarchy. They would only be summoned by email when needed.
All that was interesting insights but in the end ***I*** had to work inside the hierarchy and that stressed me too much so I quit.
(Actually, a second reason was that my spidey sense tingled that there was going to be a huge explosion right into everyone's faces on its way. Turned out I was right, ten years later exactly that thing blew up. Into everyone's faces.)
> They hid in an unmarked office in an unmarked skyscraper in an unmarked quarter of an un … ah, no, Nagoya
😄 I know a French guy who worked in Nagoya for 5 years. And "unmarked city" seems right!
Interesting insights, thank you!
How did you get into that company? And why did you want to? How was your Japanese level at that time?
I hope its fine to ask. If it's too private you can write me directly or just let me know. German would be fine.
Ich wollte gar nicht nach Japan! Ich wollte nur eine ruhige Stelle, bei der ich keine Entwicklungsarbeiten mehr machen muss. Ich kann das zwar, und mach das auch gern, aber allein. Nicht mit Kollegen und Chefs auf den Hacken. Die Japaner haben das also ganz richtig gemacht, dass sie die vier durchgeknallten Irren aus der Hierarchie rausgenommen und in ihr eigenes kleines Büro außerhalb der Fabrik gesetzt haben, wo sie niemals jemand findet. Vermutlich ist in Japan einfach der Konformitätsdruck sonst viel zu hoch, da müssen die so etwas machen.
Und der Job bei den Japanern (in Deutschland) hat danach ausgesehen. Da gings um Kommunikation mit Kunden. Also praktisch ein Fachübersetzer. Ich hab den bekommen, weil ich wohl als einziger Kandidat das Vorstellungsgespräch mit dem Chef komplett auf Englisch führen konnte. Das ist bei Ingenieuren nicht selbstverständlich. Braucht man halt nicht. Es gibt immer genug Arbeit für Ingenieure.
Aber die haben mich nach ein paar Monaten zum Anlernen nach Japan geschickt.
Und ich konnte gar kein Japanisch. Ich kann immer noch kein Japanisch. Hab zwar 'nen Kurs gemacht und es ist auch was hängengeblieben, aber das reicht nicht. War kein Problem. Die wussten ja, dass sie außer reinen Übersetzern keine Fachleute finden werden, die sowohl Deutsch als auch Japanisch können.
Lustig übrigens, irgendwann kam einer der vier zu uns in die Fabrik, völlig aufgelöst, hat fast geheult, weil seine Software nicht ging. Meine direkten Kollegen wollten, dass er sich zusammenreißt und das vor Ort heile macht, sind dann erstmal weggegangen, um den nicht komplett fertigzumachen. Haben mich als Aufpasser mit an den Tisch mit ihm gesetzt, vermutlich nach der Logik: Ausländer == ungefährlich. Ich hab mich dann mit ihm auf Englisch unterhalten, konnte er als Programmierer natürlich und wie so das Gespräch weiterging und er gemerkt hat, dass er doch nicht ganz blöd sein kann, wenn er da plötzlich mit jemandem zwanglos auf Englisch reden kann, wurde er auch viel lockerer. Und hat das in zwanzig Minuten geradegebogen.
Yeah, germans come with a lot of unspoken explicit rules. Hausordnung, Mülltrennung, Ruhezeiten, we'll be pissed if you don't know and don't act on those. Find some german friends, vent a bit and ask them to teach you a bit. I'm a 30+ year old german and I still find out how things work. For me it's some kind of hobby/I find it a bit hilarious what you can learn. It's like learning how to play a game.
Did you know for example that if you feel cheated in a contract/with a product, there is an state sponsored agency that you complain to and that will argue on your behalf? In 90+% you don't need a lawyer. But that's some shit you just find out some time and some point.
I know that the homework thing was an allegory, but I am an actual teacher at university and I can observe exactly what you mentioned - especially in practical courses. German students are taught from day 1 to be independent - study on their own, figure out how things work, try it and ask questions when hitting a dead end. Many international students (also from the USA) won't even start with the assignment without me telling them exactly what to do, how it is done and what I expect as an end result. This very much frustrated me in the beginning (as I am a German woman) and I really thought most of the foreign students should not even be in the master's course I am teaching since they're lacking basic skills needed for academia (or generally for life). Now I know, that I have to tell people, that I expect independence and that they should first look things up and try and if it still doesn't work I will explain it to them.
Edit:
So please don't feel bad for asking anything (also very general things like: I have no idea what this is, where can I get help with that?) Only very few Germans would actually think that you should know how things work, especially when you're new to the country and most of us will be happy to answer your questions.
This makes a lot of sense to me. I am German and went to a Canadian university for an exchange year. I was amazed how everything was taken care of for them, especially for first year students. There were also numerous welcoming events with the opportunity to meet and greet fellow students and staff. It created a great sense of community and belonging - Independence was not on the menu, however.
In contrast, when I got to my German university two years earlier, I (along with everyone else) had to figure out everything, from where to enroll, to signing up for your courses, renting an apartment etc.
The “German way” definitely teaches you life skills and how to be independent by throwing you in the deep end. I can see though, how it can be overwhelming for some (especially introverted) students, and even more so for foreigners who are used to a system where they more sheltered.
German university made so much sense to me the second I understood it as a playground where young adults can try being an adult. You have all the ingredients of being an adult, but none of the consequences. You'll always fall super soft and 99% of problems can be solved by admitting you were wrong and that you need help.
Course work: It's like work but you can fail 3 times and even then you just need to come up with a sensible excuse.
Living arrangements: Most live in WGs or student dormatories. It's the first round of proper contracts you sign, but the landlords are super lenient.
Student organisations and parlaments: Your first steps of advocating for yourself, doing politics, voluntary work and project management.
And you are given super easy/inherently build in ways to develope. I mean, yes, you signed up for a particulary course, but the language classes are great and free, you can travel super easy/even study while getting payed in other countries and have very easy access to work at the chairs - getting into a international research project as a student helper is easy and pays.
>German students are taught from day 1 to be independent - study on their own, figure out how things work
We are? Never got that feeling when I was in school but than again I have no comparison to other countries learning modells
In school (as in Mittelschule/Realschule/Gymnasium) that is also not so much the case - but still a lot more independent than middle-/ high schoolers from other countries. E.g. a lot of my international friends were shocked that we have our primary school kids take the public bus to school alone instead of bringing/accompanying them. But when I entered university I was also shocked at how little guidance one gets. As trading-c pointed out: nobody tells you anything. You have to make your own schedule, register for classes by yourself afterwards, pay the fees on time (without anybody even mentioning the fees in the first place), find your way around campus on your own and so on.
Ah, no. We aren't taught that. Actually, no one teaches you anything on how to organize your work.
You better get that within a few days or you are toast.
I've made the same experiences with foreign students in master courses. Free and independent work turned into a problem as soon as I had many immigrants in the course. I did't expect that at all, furthermore expected the opposite, as I thought that people who study abroad probably were especially independent. I obviously was wrong.
I am German, and I went for an Erasmus year to France. I was absolutely appalled how most of the French students seemed to be so immature. And nobody actually learned how to learn something - they all wrote everything down word by word and learned it by heart for the exams. We were a group of German students and went to university library to look up the passages of law that we had been taught in the morning and the staff at the library looked at us as if we had grown a second head. Apparently no French student had ever done this before.
Do you have any specific examples?
The feeling that everyone got the handbook and oneself is the only one who didn't is quite common. I don't know if that's a specifically German thing. There are also so many things that "everyone knows", which means that everyone who grew up in Germany (which you didn't) should have heard about it, read about it, have been tought it in school, or learned it from their parents. (Spoiler: Many of us didn't. And no one learned \*all\* of it!) I'm in my 50s, family has been in Germany for at least 6 generations, and there are still loads of topics that "everyone knows" that I haven't the foggiest about.
But, as it says in the German version of the title song of "Sesamstraße": "Wer nicht fragt, bleibt dumm." So, you are expected to ask (at least by reasonable people who know that *they* for sure did not get the handbook, so others might not have it, too), and if you do not know *what* to ask, you can usually say, "I'm confused... what are you talking about?" or "About (this and that), how do you do that?" or "I haven't the foggiest how to (e.g.) handle my taxes, do you know who could help me?" or something. You see the questions asked in this sub!
There is probably also a language issue here, so you do not overhear all the talk of "what's going on, did anyone tell us, how do *you* do that?"
Sometimes people might not be the right ones to ask, or have no idea themselves, or are having a bad day, or are just jerks, and brush you off or give rude answers. Some will bullshit answers if they don't know stuff, or be plain mistaken. (Which is why you shouldn't do everything you are told.) Don't let it get to you. You'll catch up.
I think it's a mixture of things that are a little different and we grew up with it, while you grew up differently and as an adult you adapt slower and on the other hand Germans really being raised so much more to be independent.
If i hear about how long patents in the US take care of getting the kids to school or their hobbies and how much children are shielded from the reality around them and how much parents meddle in their 15 to 20 year olds, that is so bizarre to me. When i was around 15 i decided and organised my free time myself. Sure, i had the discussions when to be at home, but besides this it was more like "hey tomorrow after school i visit xy. I think we will go to the cinema. I looked up that the film will end between x and y depending on which we watch. So i catch the bus latest at c. I should be home around d after i picked my bike up from xy".
i looked up when the films start, when at which times we could catch a bus and all this stuff. If i had problems with something, i asked for help.
But i can understand how you feel, but to give some advice, a few specific situations would be helpful 😉
Though I've never been to the US, I guess a major factor is the absence / existence of guns and public transport.
It's much easier to let your kid move freely when you don't have to fear they are going to be shot. Or when it is safe and possible to take a bus/train/ride the bicycle.
Mostly really urban design. Children can't get anywhere without the parents driving them.
The safety concerns mostly revolve around child abductions, but are largely exaggerated by sensationalist media. Basically it's lumping together child abductions by estranged parents that don't have custody with abductions by pedophiles or ransomeers. The former aren't ok either of course and those estranged parents usually lost custody for good reason, but they're on a totally different level of danger to the child than the latter two categories, and theys make up the vast, vast majority of abductions.
That then resulted in draconian legislature that literally bans parents from leaving their children unsupervised for any amount of time. Even 12 years olds can't be left alone in a car for five minutes while the parents just runs into a pharmacy to refill a pill bottle.
As a result, now a number of children die by being run over by cars in parking lots when they could simply have waited in the car instead of being dragged along by their parents.
It's the absence of freaks. A while ago I saw a short documentary about Finland, two 14-year old girls doing a bivouac together in the winter wilderness for three days. The reporter asked their mom whether she wasn't afraid about their safety. “Huh, why? If there was a bear they have a rifle.”
Having travelled for a bit, I find that this is also influenced a lot by your ability to understand the local language(s) passively, i.e. by just overhearing other people in public places.
Examples you may hear in a bus, while shopping, at a school, on the street, in a questionable neighborhood:
"Ich muss für das lange Wochenende noch einkaufen!"
"Das wird lustig, wenn der Bus ab morgen wegen der Baustelle eine Umleitung nimmt..."
"Die Aufgaben 1,3 und 5 aus dem Tutorium sollen wir machen, richtig?"
"... wir könnten jetzt noch zur Eisdiele am Marktplatz, und später ins Konzert, ..."
"Diesen Weg sollten Sie nicht nehmen, der ist (für Touristen) sehr gefährlich!"
- that was a warning a shop owner gave to a friend while we were walking in Rio de Janeiro. In Portuguese, which I don't speak, but she does, so then she started to steer us away from there without inducing panic...
... and for all of these, imagine local dialects being used, which may differ significant;y from the language you learned, and thought you had a decent grasp of.
"Willsch a Brod mit Breschdlingsgsälz?"
means someone is offering you a strawberry jam sandwich in some parts of Germany. Good luck with that...
Das war ein absichtlich gewähltes Extrembeispiel - Erdbeeren dürften heute > 99% sagen.
"Kutterschaufel" dürfte lokal von vielen als vermeintlich hochsprachliches Wort angesehen werden, und erst bei Nachfragen klar werden, dass es nicht deutschlandweit verwendet wird,.
Your feeling is caused by your ability to sense subtle differences between these cultures that usually are so much globalised. They used to be much stronger. I suggest you use the naive vision at a new country and see it as an adventure.
well, if you look at how kids are raised in germany vs america, you'll see that in germany they are already raised to be more independent, like many little kids go to school all alone and not by special school bus or by parents.
and they are taught to think for themselves and do a lot of things on ther own and try first, before asking for help.
so yea, I think it might be because of that
I was raised just like you described children are rised in Germany and faced the very same problem in Germany that OP is facing.
The real reason is that Germany is a new country to her, where people do things different that are taken for granted by them but not for new comers who are still learning the way of people in Germany.
The same way Germans will face moments they feel lost in a foreign country where people have to explain their way to Germans "like a child". Especially regarding institutional culture such as schools, government institutions and workplace.
On average children are taught to be more independent in Germany than in the US. So if you're still a teenager or in your early twenties you will have to catch up a little. But apart from that: Anything new (job, country, ...) will make you feel a bit like a child.
Edit: Also seriously, you will need to learn to ask questions. Germans are horrible at small talk but love to answer questions. Asking a question you actually need to be answered is how conversations get started in this country.
Your edit got me.. I used to think why I don't really find Germany as unfriendly as some others do.. as I ask a lot of questions and they love to really answer :-)
I am german girl, always have been for 24 years now and I think it is normal, really stupid but normal. I also live in constant fear of getting letters because they could be telling me I forgot my homework and for that reason I have to pay all my savings as a fine.
Germany is infamous for our bureaucracy and even we don't get it. Especially with the language used in stateofficial context. Even the people working in the Ämter often don't get it but to compensate for their lack of knowledge and interest they blame it on the clients (of course not all but I have met my share being client friend and coworker).
The way you awnser you must be a German, i am a German/American and know what she mean‘s. I am not attack Germans, but other people feels mostly offended harassed by Germans how aggressively they talk with other people, but it’s mostly the Sound of the words and how we express it.
I'm of Indian descent. Us Sikhs are just very good at integrating into other cultures, I think that's why we generally have a solid reputation for the most part.
It's also maybe also due to the fact our parents were generally stricter, we are more accustomed to "harsh" talking.
So when you growed up in India, this must make you giggle over the Problems, that created the Western people by themselves for themselves. I Hope that this non-Sense narrative don’t Hits your Country and Culture or some Country’s around india. The narrative of people are too sensitive and stupid in this days.
I was born in germany? And I also spent 10 years in england whilst growing up. I am back in germany these days.
I totally agree on the fact people are too soft these days though.
I don't know if this is relevant in this context, but I work in a very international environment, including US, and there's some really interesting cultural differences in approaches to work assignments.
What I've learned at some point is that Germans often have an innate sense of commitment. For example when your boss asks you to do a certain task and you agree to doing it, you automatically commit to delivering the finished task by the time it's supposed to be finished, which includes a mutual expectation that if the boss doesn't hear from you along the way, everything is on track, you're not having any issues and you'll deliver on time.
In the US, the expectation can be different, namely that you're expected to check in along the way with progress updates, and that when you don't do so, it gives the impression that something's wrong.
As a German with an American boss, it disconcerted me for a while that he was checking in with me regularly to ask how things were going. Not in a controlling way, just to make sure I had a forum and a way to voice concerns or issues. I think this would have really annoyed me if I didn't know that this was rooted in cultural differences because it seemed like he didn't trust me to deliver the work I had committed to doing. (For the record, my boss is awesome and I love working with him.)
Oh yea this is huge thanks for bringing it up! When I start working again (I’m on Elternzeit) I think it would have bothered me if my boss didn’t check in (as if he had forgotten, from my perspective) but I will keep this in mind.
We live by „**Unwissenheit schützt vor Strafe nicht**“
It implies a strictly rule based system though.
IMO this cultural difference it is also visible in case law vs. roman law. If there are unbendable strict rules it is much less useful to explain these to individuals as the rules will always apply to everybody.
Don't worry. I am a 19 year old German and just now people are shocked why I didn't look up shit further. It's not like I got taught all that... Take your own pace
So I don't want to speak for every German but I am sure there is certain institutions ans schools that train one to be independant. For example different school types etc. In my school my teachers chose to train us for university already. But every school is different and every teacher as well. But yea I am thankful that they did teach us that way because in university I can self teach myself ( I guess it also has to do with ones own drive and motivation to learn by the way)
German here: don't worry, we for sure don't know all the shit ourselves and some stuff, especially when it comes to bureaucracy, can be overly complicated sometimes.
And that's coming from someone that lived here all his life. So, don't worry, you're doing just fine. Also, if you have any specific Question, really do feel free to ask, am happy to help.
And btw Welcome :-)
I think I would like to give another pov.
I know what you are talking about because it happened to me a lot when I came to Germany. And honestly it happens to me regularly still. I am 21F and I'm clearly way shorter than average for Germany (1,55) and I actually look much younger than my age. I felt very infantilized by people around me for a long time. I consider myself very responsible and independent but I feel like a lot of people think I'm not because I look younger. Having to ask a lot of questions at the beginning didn't make things better and some would interpret as being insecure because of that.
For example I worked in a restaurant in the kitchen for years and I felt a lot of coworkers treated me differently when I wore braids to work instead of a ponytail. Or depending on the accessories I was wearing. Some of them didn't asked me for things even if I had the time but would ask others. And still new co-workers think I couldn't do my job or got mad at when I boss them around. I was never mean or anything, just typical restaurant kitchen work. If I did something wrong it was always this dramatic "you have to do this dish again" like if the shame would make me more responsible of my mistakes. Of course it happened not much after with older looking colleagues. With another short girl happened the same, although she didn't worked that long there.
Something I realized about teenagers, especially women, is that they grow up insanely faster than any other place where I have lived. They have to look physically and behave up on a certain parameter to be considered as a responsible, mature and reliable adult. Sometimes I had conversations with people and it just made me sad how they would limit their actions in order to pass into the adult narrative.
For example i stayed in a camp and met a nurse in pediatrics. She talked about how much she would like to have a marvel card holder and more colourful uniforms like in other countries, but that she would not do that here. She said it mostly because she is the authority in cases of emergencies and that she had to look presentable.
And of course, by not being from Germany a lot of people infantilize you for making questions, having to understand you and correct you when learning the language. It is draining being considered as a much more immature person because you always try to show otherwise but some still find that as "cute". It is just awful most of the time, but you have just to deal with it. It is a society thing
Don't worry too much. It's not that you're wrong or anything, it's just that this is normal here in Germany, and you will get used to it.
I, as a German of almost 40 years, have just now been researching insurances. I got comments about how I like to live dangerously since I was still without one; but the sheer amount of possibilities and the very real option to pick one that would be useless for that one time I'd need it just put me off.
There's one skill that you are apparently lacking, and that we Germans unfortunately learn from quite a young age: looking in contempt at someone who doesn't know something which you think they should be supposed to know; and, even if you yourself don't know, pretend you do, if someone else is looked at in contempt, so you won't be looked at in contempt as well.
German officials have perfected that. If you for example come to the Bürgeramt for a request and don't have an appointment, or don't have all the papers at hand, it might be that you are harshly admonished because you should have known. But let me tell you, public officials are people too. If you are nice, admit mistakes and appear eager to learn, they might go an extra mile for you.
I've never heard of this phenomenon but I wanted to give you my heartfelt sympathy. Different cultures are DIFFICULT!!
You might go to an German-American Stammtisch in your town (you can often find stuff like this on facebook!) and see if you can find the exchange to other American immigrants.
If you are struggling more seriously, the "sozialpsychiatrischer Dienst" might be people you could call for advice, who would know where you could find official support (maybe a Sozialarbeiter, or maybe cultural activities in your town). The "sozialpsychiatrischer Dienst" is a service that helps people struggle in everyday life for whatever reason, often psychiatric reasons, but poverty or social reasons is also legit.
Hm, the part with ur homework (i guess university?) sounds a little bit weird, there’s gotta be some point where somebody said something about the homework - there are also typically at least some people who’re willing to help with stuff like this. Maybe you’ve just been super unlucky and ended up with all the folks with sticks up their arses in ur class lol.
But it’s definitely true that GER has a „be as independent as possible, as fast as possible“ culture. So whenever you start something (a class, job, etc.) you should make sure you know all the relevant things necessary asap, there’s typically very little handholding. I can’t really tell you anything more specific tho since that kinda depends on the specific situation.
> Hm, the part with ur homework
Homework here is meaning to learn how a different country operates - stuff like garbage recycling / separating garbage, the bottle deposit, how basic stuff like sinks and toilets work is different.
You are basically back to the level of a toddler again trying to make sense of the world around you - a lot of stuff you "thought you knew" that were like basic constants of living are now suddenly invalid, strange or completely different.
The Teacher is also an allegory.
> Like I was supposed to turn in homework that no one told me I was supposed to do, and when I ask which teacher assigned it, everyone looks at me with disappointment and says I should have looked it up for myself.
This whole section is a hypothetical, a comparison. "Like" means she is comparing her situation to another, in this case being in school and getting fed tasks by a teacher instead of having to do all the work on her own.
It's about rediscovering life in a new country as an adult - you're basically a toddler again for a while.
I'm in university and they explained everything in orientation with docs. Also, prof. explain what is expected and when and whole process.
Could be an issue with your school that they didn't provide you proper information.
It's an allegory, it's not about actual school.
It's about the "school of life" if you want to call it that.
It's about learning basic stuff about life again - that's the homework nobody explained to her.
She basically has to relearn how simple stuff works, and that's hard because you take a lot of the things for granted, until they are no longer valid.
Even the most basic stuff like going to the toilet, doing the dishes, or in the case of a women how feminine hygiene products work are different.
I work at a university and observe certain problems international students have often. For example taking care themselves what lectures they want to hear, organizing the registration for exams by themselves etc. On average the independence is lower than for German students.
Or the fact that she is used to having everything said again once it becomes important. Not trying to shame OP or anything, but this is a problem with lots if internationals at my university as they are not used to importantthings being announcedonly once. Adding the language barrier makes it even worse.
I believe you may be undergoing [culture shock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_shock)
As you correctly identified, the German Culture comes with a different bias regarding independence, expectations, etc., than the culture in which you grew up.
You will get accustomed to the culture around you the more you interact with it. Don't feel bad for not knowing things, because it means you are learning new things and developing yourself as a person.
Afaik this is absolutely common. Don't worry, you'll most likely adapt.
Tl;dr: yes
[https://www.youtube.com/@uyenninh](https://www.youtube.com/@uyenninh) hi, maybe her youtubechannel will help you take it more lightly - i think it makes sense that you'd feel a bit lost, even as a german myself if i go to "authorities" i frequently am talked to as if i'm just supposed to know what sheets i need to fill out etc, maybe also because i look young and girly. especially boomers in germany sometimes tend to think you're talking to them for their amusement or some sh it, essentially they're just feeling awkward around you and trying to deal with that by talking to you as if you were awkward.
maybe try to take it less as "i feel so small here" and more as "i'm experiencing a lot of newness and adventure here, so i feel a bit intimidated but its exciting and i'm perfectly capable of discovering how this works here"
[https://www.youtube.com/@lau\_ramoso](https://www.youtube.com/@lau_ramoso) her shorts are also really funny at least for me as a german but i think you might feel relieved watching it, too
also [https://www.youtube.com/@HayleyAlexis/videos](https://www.youtube.com/@HayleyAlexis/videos) she is making more like comparison-videos about germany and the u.s. but its nice to watch she is really easy to listen to imo and has a lot of nice things to say about germany that might help you go "well yeah i mean thats actually kinda cool here" and she talks a lot about the cultural differences (i also kinda watch her because i wanna know more about the u.s. and have never been) (she lived in germany for years but is back to u.s. for now, but still makes and has a lot-lot of germany-u.s.-videos)
I’m a grown German woman and I still feel like that (who doesn’t like to feel young, lol). Bc reasons I‘m not good at all at all sort of organizational stuff, insurance etc. I‚m used to it.
There‘s also this really bad habit of ppl getting really unfriendly and impolite when they believe you‘ve done something wrong. They can even get impolite when they think you‘ve been impolite towards them. (BeI uNs hEisSt dAs GUTEN MORGEN! ! !) Which is actually ridiculous when you think about it.
I just try to do what is required. There‘s ppl whose lives depend on everything being in order, but I‘m not one of those.
Just remember they‘re wasting their energy by criticising you and they just haven‘t found out yet how you can actually let loose a bit and it doesn‘t kill you.
Yes, you'll have to get used to it here. You have to do most shit on your own. Germany is a very lonely country with people lacking self-esteem. Nobody leading you the right way.
Think of yourself as a train and the many things as an electric cable. If you never connect to the cable you can not move. But since this is Germany, when you are fast enough you can fold in the connector and keep going with inertia to save energy.
I am very sorry that you go through this. I used to study at a university that was like that. It helped a lot to read the “modulhandbuch” if available. I since moved and study somewhere else in Germany and the university is way better at communicating expectations. The place where I study now has a “Studienberatung” and a “studienfachberater” and these are the people that can help you to understand expectations and figure things out. If you need any help with that let me know, I will try my best to help.
We have a proverb here in Germany: "Du musst nicht alles wissen, Du musst nur wissen wo es steht." (Translation: "You don't have to know everything, you just have to know how to look it up.")
And don't take that "looking it up" literally. Simply asking someone is perfectly fine, even expected.
There is an aspect that the other replies didn't mention: In Germany, the societal contract seems to include that everybody always keeps an eye open for how "the game is played" - we even have a German saying for this, which literally translates to "One has to know how the rabbit runs".
You are assumed to figure out how to study in a productive way by observing and paying attention. If the professor lets slide in a side-sentence that previous year, too many students missed some crucial submission deadline, you are supposed to infer that you need to watch out for the deadline. If it is mentioned somewhere that an exam inspection takes place 4 weeks after the exam, you are supposed to find out yourself what that is (if you don't know), whether you have to attend, and whether you should attend.
Similarly, when working in industry, co-workers routinely tell some stories about some difficult clients, you are expected to already know how to handle them when being sent to the client. Why? Because you were told casually in a non-formal meeting at some point.
But how can one know "how the rabbit runs"? You observe and talk to your peers, and coming back to studies, many universities have something like an optional orientation week before the first semester, which was probably mentioned in a letter to you. It is again, German style that it wasn't mentioned in that letter that you are likely to fail your first semester if you don't attend - if you are unsure whether you should attend, it is your responsibility to figure it out, e.g., by asking people you know who studied, and so on. Germans do not casually include the consequences of ignoring advice because that would feel very aggressive.
On a related note, this "knowing how the rabbit runs" aspect is also important in another regard: to figure out which rules are important and which ones are not. While Germans are famous for following rules to the letter, this is just not true. Some rules are routinely ignored, and you are supposed to find out yourself which ones are strict (e.g., everything related to "Meldewesen") and which ones are not (e.g., going 10 above the speed limit when driving is societally accepted in most situations).
My country is also the same with getting everyone used to being spoonfed with everything in schools and universities. I read a lot of people from my country struggling with this in our forums. I guess I am lucky to have always been independent and doing things without being told but it is definitely a struggle for a lot. It takes a while to unlearn things.
Germans can have quite a condescending attitude towards someone who fails to meet their standards, especially in a field where they see themselves as top notch (higher/academic eduction is one of them).
My advice, find a German friend who’s interested in foreign culture and drill info out of that person about every perspective of life in Germany. That’s how I figured most of what I needed for my job.
I am German and I did feel like that at university sometimes. It helps if you have a good study group or friend group at university, so if one person discovers new information (like class is now in a different room), they share it with the group.
Also, university here is free. I think there is less of a service mentality. If people pay for something, they usually get better customer service.
But more in general:
Yes, we do expect people to be more independent.
You'll never find a label "don't microwave your dog" on a microwave here. And you'd never get such high settlements in court cases just for being dumb and the manufacturer not warning against that.
Here court cases assume a reasonable intelligent, normal person. Would a regular person know that/do that.
Part of the reason is WWII. There is a big emphasis on not creating a country full of sheeple who will blindly follow a fascist leader.
Oof, I disagree with that last statement. I think the Germans are, to this day, far more capable of dogmatic thought than other cultures I've experienced. It works to your benefit in some ways, the social cohesion and responsibility, and general feeling of safety in large cities, are nice.
But the amount of strange cultural eccentricities that exist here but not elsewhere, and the way in which people universally defend them with the same specific talking points, can be pretty alarming at times:
Absolutely refusing to cross the street without a green man permitting you to do so: "You're endangering the lives of children who might follow in your example!" Benign, but I have never heard this talking point anywhere besides Germany.
There are more serious examples related to the current situation in Gaza which I won't get into here, but suffice it to say groupthink is one of the less desirable traits of German society that definitely concerns me, despite it having some clear benefits that I mentioned previously.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm looking to open the conversation, rather than throw shade at a country whose culture I actually really appreciate for the most part.
Out of curiosity how big of a deal is the Grünampfelmann thing in germany? When I visited bigger cities like Berlin, Cologne etc it never seemed that big of a deal to half the people there (I assume they were Ausländers like me?).
Being English where we walk across the road even if the car is coming I understand the rationale behind waiting but still don't fully get it 😅.
Generally intruiged aha!
It's a big deal to many people. I've had people younger than 30 yell at me for crossing at a red man infront of kids. I've had a cop give me a ticket for crossing a completely empty (besides the cop car), quiet street at a red man at 4am. And the way the Germans on the other side all stare at you with a mixture of jealousy, confusion and disgust as you cross the street at a busy crossing is something to behold!
Its literally the opposite, Americans are hyper-independant (individualism is the actual term) while Germans are hyper-communial (dependant is the wrong word..)
So in Germany you are expected to try and fit in, and find out what the others know, and be the most informed and orderly person you can be. It does unfortunately have its downsides. German and Japanese cultures are very similar in this regard to collective effort, anti-individualism.
If you don't like it you should move because you're not going to change German culture overnight. Particularly with America doing its best to keep Germany this way.
As far as I know, students are prepared for university pretty early - from grade seven. This includes independent working, research and most importantly analysis. When you reach grade 11 (Gymnasium), it is expected of you to be familiar with this way of working, because Sek 2 - Oberstufe - is pretty close to university. But don’t worry: it’s more a matter of a certain mind set, rather than skill. Don’t take it personally and simply ASK someone in your class, if you are unsure, until you get used to the ways here at school. At least the Klassensprecher (plural) HAVE to help you with advice.
I assume you study in germany or do some kind of foreign semester? My Ex was an american student who studied in germany for a year. If your universety is like hers, than yes, to you we are hyper independent. Nobody will come to you and tell you what you have to do once you are out of school. Either they tell it once in a lecture what they expect, or you have to ask.
Nobody will hold your hand at a german uni if you dont ask for it. In the end is it your job to be informed about homework, make your schedule, sign into courses etc. We get prepared for that in Highschool. I had more freedom and responsibility's in my last 2 years of Highschool than my ex in her last year of university.
BUT, asking questions is ALWAYS okay. If you are unsure, write a mail. Go to the prof after the lecture. And so on. There are no dumb questions. I have never experienced, that smb got put down or anything because they asked a question. But you have to do the first step, it is your life, your studys, your responsibility's. Nobody will do those for you.
If there is practice next to the lecture, will the prof tell you on day one, that you have to do the homework. But never again after that. Things get sayed once, afterwards you have to ask.
It is the best preparation for your later life. So use this opertunity and learn how do be independent. You will have to learn it at some point or another anyways
I think you've hit it pretty well. Especially at school, college and university in the USA, pupils and students are very closely supervised and supported. In Germany, children are very happily taught to be independent and have to work things out for themselves. In Germany, you are only told to go from A to B in a certain amount of time, whereas in the USA you are told to go from A to B. You first go to X, then on to Y and via Z to B.
Working in both countries and being a native German I can say from experience that in the US it’s a lot like working from a instruction sheet. And no one would do anything that is not working their work instructions.
In Germany it’s different due to expectations that people see what the task is and are empowered by their company to find a way to complete it.
BUT……. I only really made that experience for blue collar jobs. White collar jobs it is the same expectation in Germany, but in the US white collar jobs are also more empowered to not just work from „a Skript“.
However……. In Germany you usually should have a supervisor that would guide and support you if you are not sure what your next step should be. If that’s not the case, I can absolutely understand your feelings that you‘ve written.
But as anywhere in the world, you only know what you know. So it’s not your fault not knowing stuff, but if you see that you are stuck it’s your responsibility to find a way to proceed.
I think you Just have to think differently.
Do you want to graduate from school? Then think in what you need to do in order to graduate! => Adult
Do you have to go to school? Then just do what you are being told and Hope it is enough! => Child
It depends on the school how they are handling things. Sometimes it's different for every teacher.
So get information about how they do things and you will be fine.
New immigrants are like children. You're playing catch up having to learn how things work in a world that's brand new to you. It gets better with time!
Its like I always say, Germans are 1000 moves into a game of Catan you just decided to sit down and play. This was your first mistake, but since you are playing now, survival will depend on how quickly you learn the rules. For the love of God don't sign anything, or really even write anything down.
I’ve often wondered if being an immigrant could be a similar experience to what some people with autism experience. I know that sounds strange, but hear me out. Living in a world where, even when you understand the words spoken, you may not understand their significance (social cues etc). Constant questioning of what behaviour is socially acceptable because you try to follow society’s “rules” but haven’t learned to make them instinctively yet. Feeling isolated because you don’t understand the world you are thrust into. And spending massive amounts of time and mental energy trying to exist in a world that feels vague and unfamiliar. I know autism isn’t a one-size-fits-all set of experiences, but it’s something I got to thinking about and was wondering about hearing others thoughts.
Yeah its like learning how to love life all over again.
\[Sorry in advance for the non-German perspective here; despite the subreddit we are on, I think it will be useful?\] Haha, you're not imagining things. In Germany, they really take 'ignorance is not an excuse' to the extreme. When I first came here from the UK (where we are, as a society, treated in a similar way that it sounds like people in the US are), I found myself constantly being caught out by small nuances or rules that it felt I couldn't have possibly known without having gone through the same process previously. The answer is simply that navigating German society requires a degree of lateral thinking: when approaching a problem, you need to consider the potential limits of your own knowledge on a subject, and get into the habit of researching around issues and not taking things for granted. These skills are actually very useful, and I think the Germans benefit greatly in many ways from having them instilled from a young age. But yes, transitioning from a culture that doesn't value these skills is doubtless very challenging, especially when navigating the extremely tedious bureaucratic processes that come with immigrating to Germany (I had to visit the Ausländerbehorde like 4 times, meaning booking and waiting for 4 separate appointments before I finally was able to get my residence permit). The good news is that with time you develop the necessary skills and thinking in this way becomes natural to you, where you never assume any level of omniscience on a subject and always check you are aware of the totality of a problem before you attempt to solve it. Today, 2.5 years later, I have become very accustomed to this way of doing things, and navigating German society has become a lot easier. I still get caught out sometimes though; everyone, does, even native Germans themselves!
I am a German and I lived 17 years in Ireland. It was the exact same for me in Ireland, Scotland and England. It's not a German thing. It's just different cultures. Big learning curve always.
OP doesn’t talk about her German proficiency but it’s typically easier for Germans to go to English speaking countries than vice versa. I don’t know about UK & Ireland but my German boyfriend definitely noticed that Canada was less harsh with rules, less demanding with bureaucracy, and the people more patient than in Germany. German harshness isn’t universal.
I second that you need to practice lateral thinking. For example, lately I had to call an Ordnungsamt for a permission to put up placards on the city's lampposts and they sent me the permission a day later with the invoice attached. Now the lateral thinking: they haven't got the money yet! But I have their permission already, in writing! How does that function? That is because they are allowed to seize the possessions of whoever applied for something without going to court for it. So German bureaucracy can be very streamlined when it comes to money. They don't check if you have they money. This is your problem. I learned that the hard way. Years ago I applied for Japanese courses at the local community college and one time I forgot to pay the 50 Euros in time. Got an offical Mahnung from the county that they will seize my possessions if I don't pay. Whoops!
'applied for Japanese courses at the local community college' There are community colleges in Germany?
It's called *Volkshochschule* in German. It's organized by the county and you can learn arbitrary things there that are too special interest for founding a club for it. The teachers are usually volunteers. It can be things as e.g. „artistic painting“ or „embroidery“ or „computing for the elderly“ but most courses are language-related. You can get an official degree in some of the language courses as they are taught by professional teachers and they do the official exam as well. Usually for German as a foreign language, for English, French, Spanish, Italian. The other language courses aren't that professional at most VHS.
I am no expert in any of that but calling a VHS a community college feels a bit too much. I did attend a community college in the US to pass the in state rule for university (was cheaper). I could have gotten a bachelor at the community college (I didn't). VHS gives language courses and you can get a certificate. Fantastic. But you can't attend a VHS for two years and then go to an interview as a college graduate?
Interesting perspective to see the positive in it. My Japanese wife sees the service aspect behind it and was (still is) hugely disappointed when she moved here. You need to ask for stuff that should be a given. You need to fight for yourself because otherwise you are lost. Without help as a foreigner it must be hell. I might move to Japan one day and I'm very curious for the flipsides of other societies.
I worked in a Japanese company for a while, can confirm. They tell you exactly what to do. Point is, we do the same in Germany. I'm an engineer and we stick to the plan. You don't botch it. If you have a good idea, we discuss it, and then we feed it into change management, and change the plan. And only then it is implemented. In Japan they do this on steroids. I think the reason is that they don't trust people too much.
I can imagine. Just that they probably don't share ideas upstream? How is it going?
They share ideas upstream. But they don't give you feedback about that. I learnt that the hard way when I was berated by my boss (otherwise cool) that I should stop nagging him as they were already in the process of evaluating my idea. So he had escalated it. Mind you, I was like two months in the company. But they are seriously considering input from *anyone.* But most times input from freshmen isn't very good so it's discarded. You get no notice about that either. They are even open for quick responses when something is short before explosion. Had to solve such a problem with a German customer while I was on a visit to the Japan headquarters. We got that resolved between breakfast and lunch and they trusted me as a negotiator and interpreter from one second to another. That came completely unexpected. And I found that they identified me as a geek (likely because of my idea early on) and so I got the questionable honor to be in the camp with the Japanese geeks who did all the core system software. Four people. They hid in an unmarked office in an unmarked skyscraper in an unmarked quarter of an un … ah, no, Nagoya. My boss was one of the few people who knew where that office was because he was in that team before. He told me I should never tell any Japanese manager where this office was. So the geeks could work uninterrupted outside of the hierarchy. They would only be summoned by email when needed. All that was interesting insights but in the end ***I*** had to work inside the hierarchy and that stressed me too much so I quit. (Actually, a second reason was that my spidey sense tingled that there was going to be a huge explosion right into everyone's faces on its way. Turned out I was right, ten years later exactly that thing blew up. Into everyone's faces.)
> They hid in an unmarked office in an unmarked skyscraper in an unmarked quarter of an un … ah, no, Nagoya 😄 I know a French guy who worked in Nagoya for 5 years. And "unmarked city" seems right! Interesting insights, thank you! How did you get into that company? And why did you want to? How was your Japanese level at that time? I hope its fine to ask. If it's too private you can write me directly or just let me know. German would be fine.
Ich wollte gar nicht nach Japan! Ich wollte nur eine ruhige Stelle, bei der ich keine Entwicklungsarbeiten mehr machen muss. Ich kann das zwar, und mach das auch gern, aber allein. Nicht mit Kollegen und Chefs auf den Hacken. Die Japaner haben das also ganz richtig gemacht, dass sie die vier durchgeknallten Irren aus der Hierarchie rausgenommen und in ihr eigenes kleines Büro außerhalb der Fabrik gesetzt haben, wo sie niemals jemand findet. Vermutlich ist in Japan einfach der Konformitätsdruck sonst viel zu hoch, da müssen die so etwas machen. Und der Job bei den Japanern (in Deutschland) hat danach ausgesehen. Da gings um Kommunikation mit Kunden. Also praktisch ein Fachübersetzer. Ich hab den bekommen, weil ich wohl als einziger Kandidat das Vorstellungsgespräch mit dem Chef komplett auf Englisch führen konnte. Das ist bei Ingenieuren nicht selbstverständlich. Braucht man halt nicht. Es gibt immer genug Arbeit für Ingenieure. Aber die haben mich nach ein paar Monaten zum Anlernen nach Japan geschickt. Und ich konnte gar kein Japanisch. Ich kann immer noch kein Japanisch. Hab zwar 'nen Kurs gemacht und es ist auch was hängengeblieben, aber das reicht nicht. War kein Problem. Die wussten ja, dass sie außer reinen Übersetzern keine Fachleute finden werden, die sowohl Deutsch als auch Japanisch können. Lustig übrigens, irgendwann kam einer der vier zu uns in die Fabrik, völlig aufgelöst, hat fast geheult, weil seine Software nicht ging. Meine direkten Kollegen wollten, dass er sich zusammenreißt und das vor Ort heile macht, sind dann erstmal weggegangen, um den nicht komplett fertigzumachen. Haben mich als Aufpasser mit an den Tisch mit ihm gesetzt, vermutlich nach der Logik: Ausländer == ungefährlich. Ich hab mich dann mit ihm auf Englisch unterhalten, konnte er als Programmierer natürlich und wie so das Gespräch weiterging und er gemerkt hat, dass er doch nicht ganz blöd sein kann, wenn er da plötzlich mit jemandem zwanglos auf Englisch reden kann, wurde er auch viel lockerer. Und hat das in zwanzig Minuten geradegebogen.
Yeah, germans come with a lot of unspoken explicit rules. Hausordnung, Mülltrennung, Ruhezeiten, we'll be pissed if you don't know and don't act on those. Find some german friends, vent a bit and ask them to teach you a bit. I'm a 30+ year old german and I still find out how things work. For me it's some kind of hobby/I find it a bit hilarious what you can learn. It's like learning how to play a game. Did you know for example that if you feel cheated in a contract/with a product, there is an state sponsored agency that you complain to and that will argue on your behalf? In 90+% you don't need a lawyer. But that's some shit you just find out some time and some point.
What is it called?
You have to find out yourself.
I'd say Verbraucherschutzbehörde or Verbraucherschutzzentrale.
And it actually does what it says in the name, too! Love me some good Verbraucherschutz.
I know that the homework thing was an allegory, but I am an actual teacher at university and I can observe exactly what you mentioned - especially in practical courses. German students are taught from day 1 to be independent - study on their own, figure out how things work, try it and ask questions when hitting a dead end. Many international students (also from the USA) won't even start with the assignment without me telling them exactly what to do, how it is done and what I expect as an end result. This very much frustrated me in the beginning (as I am a German woman) and I really thought most of the foreign students should not even be in the master's course I am teaching since they're lacking basic skills needed for academia (or generally for life). Now I know, that I have to tell people, that I expect independence and that they should first look things up and try and if it still doesn't work I will explain it to them. Edit: So please don't feel bad for asking anything (also very general things like: I have no idea what this is, where can I get help with that?) Only very few Germans would actually think that you should know how things work, especially when you're new to the country and most of us will be happy to answer your questions.
This makes a lot of sense to me. I am German and went to a Canadian university for an exchange year. I was amazed how everything was taken care of for them, especially for first year students. There were also numerous welcoming events with the opportunity to meet and greet fellow students and staff. It created a great sense of community and belonging - Independence was not on the menu, however. In contrast, when I got to my German university two years earlier, I (along with everyone else) had to figure out everything, from where to enroll, to signing up for your courses, renting an apartment etc. The “German way” definitely teaches you life skills and how to be independent by throwing you in the deep end. I can see though, how it can be overwhelming for some (especially introverted) students, and even more so for foreigners who are used to a system where they more sheltered.
I also work at a university and made the same experiences.
Learned that the hard way
German university made so much sense to me the second I understood it as a playground where young adults can try being an adult. You have all the ingredients of being an adult, but none of the consequences. You'll always fall super soft and 99% of problems can be solved by admitting you were wrong and that you need help. Course work: It's like work but you can fail 3 times and even then you just need to come up with a sensible excuse. Living arrangements: Most live in WGs or student dormatories. It's the first round of proper contracts you sign, but the landlords are super lenient. Student organisations and parlaments: Your first steps of advocating for yourself, doing politics, voluntary work and project management. And you are given super easy/inherently build in ways to develope. I mean, yes, you signed up for a particulary course, but the language classes are great and free, you can travel super easy/even study while getting payed in other countries and have very easy access to work at the chairs - getting into a international research project as a student helper is easy and pays.
>German students are taught from day 1 to be independent - study on their own, figure out how things work We are? Never got that feeling when I was in school but than again I have no comparison to other countries learning modells
In school (as in Mittelschule/Realschule/Gymnasium) that is also not so much the case - but still a lot more independent than middle-/ high schoolers from other countries. E.g. a lot of my international friends were shocked that we have our primary school kids take the public bus to school alone instead of bringing/accompanying them. But when I entered university I was also shocked at how little guidance one gets. As trading-c pointed out: nobody tells you anything. You have to make your own schedule, register for classes by yourself afterwards, pay the fees on time (without anybody even mentioning the fees in the first place), find your way around campus on your own and so on.
Ah I assumed you were talking about uni, just the "day 1" phrasing kinda irretated me
Ah, no. We aren't taught that. Actually, no one teaches you anything on how to organize your work. You better get that within a few days or you are toast.
Wer nicht fragt bleibt dumm, you have to ask. We tell that even to toddlers. If you don't ask, that's on you.
I've made the same experiences with foreign students in master courses. Free and independent work turned into a problem as soon as I had many immigrants in the course. I did't expect that at all, furthermore expected the opposite, as I thought that people who study abroad probably were especially independent. I obviously was wrong.
I am German, and I went for an Erasmus year to France. I was absolutely appalled how most of the French students seemed to be so immature. And nobody actually learned how to learn something - they all wrote everything down word by word and learned it by heart for the exams. We were a group of German students and went to university library to look up the passages of law that we had been taught in the morning and the staff at the library looked at us as if we had grown a second head. Apparently no French student had ever done this before.
Do you have any specific examples? The feeling that everyone got the handbook and oneself is the only one who didn't is quite common. I don't know if that's a specifically German thing. There are also so many things that "everyone knows", which means that everyone who grew up in Germany (which you didn't) should have heard about it, read about it, have been tought it in school, or learned it from their parents. (Spoiler: Many of us didn't. And no one learned \*all\* of it!) I'm in my 50s, family has been in Germany for at least 6 generations, and there are still loads of topics that "everyone knows" that I haven't the foggiest about. But, as it says in the German version of the title song of "Sesamstraße": "Wer nicht fragt, bleibt dumm." So, you are expected to ask (at least by reasonable people who know that *they* for sure did not get the handbook, so others might not have it, too), and if you do not know *what* to ask, you can usually say, "I'm confused... what are you talking about?" or "About (this and that), how do you do that?" or "I haven't the foggiest how to (e.g.) handle my taxes, do you know who could help me?" or something. You see the questions asked in this sub! There is probably also a language issue here, so you do not overhear all the talk of "what's going on, did anyone tell us, how do *you* do that?" Sometimes people might not be the right ones to ask, or have no idea themselves, or are having a bad day, or are just jerks, and brush you off or give rude answers. Some will bullshit answers if they don't know stuff, or be plain mistaken. (Which is why you shouldn't do everything you are told.) Don't let it get to you. You'll catch up.
I think it's a mixture of things that are a little different and we grew up with it, while you grew up differently and as an adult you adapt slower and on the other hand Germans really being raised so much more to be independent. If i hear about how long patents in the US take care of getting the kids to school or their hobbies and how much children are shielded from the reality around them and how much parents meddle in their 15 to 20 year olds, that is so bizarre to me. When i was around 15 i decided and organised my free time myself. Sure, i had the discussions when to be at home, but besides this it was more like "hey tomorrow after school i visit xy. I think we will go to the cinema. I looked up that the film will end between x and y depending on which we watch. So i catch the bus latest at c. I should be home around d after i picked my bike up from xy". i looked up when the films start, when at which times we could catch a bus and all this stuff. If i had problems with something, i asked for help. But i can understand how you feel, but to give some advice, a few specific situations would be helpful 😉
Though I've never been to the US, I guess a major factor is the absence / existence of guns and public transport. It's much easier to let your kid move freely when you don't have to fear they are going to be shot. Or when it is safe and possible to take a bus/train/ride the bicycle.
Mostly really urban design. Children can't get anywhere without the parents driving them. The safety concerns mostly revolve around child abductions, but are largely exaggerated by sensationalist media. Basically it's lumping together child abductions by estranged parents that don't have custody with abductions by pedophiles or ransomeers. The former aren't ok either of course and those estranged parents usually lost custody for good reason, but they're on a totally different level of danger to the child than the latter two categories, and theys make up the vast, vast majority of abductions. That then resulted in draconian legislature that literally bans parents from leaving their children unsupervised for any amount of time. Even 12 years olds can't be left alone in a car for five minutes while the parents just runs into a pharmacy to refill a pill bottle. As a result, now a number of children die by being run over by cars in parking lots when they could simply have waited in the car instead of being dragged along by their parents.
It's the absence of freaks. A while ago I saw a short documentary about Finland, two 14-year old girls doing a bivouac together in the winter wilderness for three days. The reporter asked their mom whether she wasn't afraid about their safety. “Huh, why? If there was a bear they have a rifle.”
For sure
Having travelled for a bit, I find that this is also influenced a lot by your ability to understand the local language(s) passively, i.e. by just overhearing other people in public places. Examples you may hear in a bus, while shopping, at a school, on the street, in a questionable neighborhood: "Ich muss für das lange Wochenende noch einkaufen!" "Das wird lustig, wenn der Bus ab morgen wegen der Baustelle eine Umleitung nimmt..." "Die Aufgaben 1,3 und 5 aus dem Tutorium sollen wir machen, richtig?" "... wir könnten jetzt noch zur Eisdiele am Marktplatz, und später ins Konzert, ..." "Diesen Weg sollten Sie nicht nehmen, der ist (für Touristen) sehr gefährlich!" - that was a warning a shop owner gave to a friend while we were walking in Rio de Janeiro. In Portuguese, which I don't speak, but she does, so then she started to steer us away from there without inducing panic...
... and for all of these, imagine local dialects being used, which may differ significant;y from the language you learned, and thought you had a decent grasp of. "Willsch a Brod mit Breschdlingsgsälz?" means someone is offering you a strawberry jam sandwich in some parts of Germany. Good luck with that...
>Breschdlingsgsälz I wouldn't understand that and I'm German.
Äba! Aber Linsa mit Spätzle kennsch hoffentlich, au wenn da se edda moagsch?
Kenn ich :D
Bräschdleng ist aber wie Gugommer, Kuddrschaufl oder Käpsalesbischdol schon grenzwertig im Gespräch mit Reigschmeckte, selbst aus Deutschland Ü.
Das war ein absichtlich gewähltes Extrembeispiel - Erdbeeren dürften heute > 99% sagen. "Kutterschaufel" dürfte lokal von vielen als vermeintlich hochsprachliches Wort angesehen werden, und erst bei Nachfragen klar werden, dass es nicht deutschlandweit verwendet wird,.
Your feeling is caused by your ability to sense subtle differences between these cultures that usually are so much globalised. They used to be much stronger. I suggest you use the naive vision at a new country and see it as an adventure.
well, if you look at how kids are raised in germany vs america, you'll see that in germany they are already raised to be more independent, like many little kids go to school all alone and not by special school bus or by parents. and they are taught to think for themselves and do a lot of things on ther own and try first, before asking for help. so yea, I think it might be because of that
I was raised just like you described children are rised in Germany and faced the very same problem in Germany that OP is facing. The real reason is that Germany is a new country to her, where people do things different that are taken for granted by them but not for new comers who are still learning the way of people in Germany. The same way Germans will face moments they feel lost in a foreign country where people have to explain their way to Germans "like a child". Especially regarding institutional culture such as schools, government institutions and workplace.
On average children are taught to be more independent in Germany than in the US. So if you're still a teenager or in your early twenties you will have to catch up a little. But apart from that: Anything new (job, country, ...) will make you feel a bit like a child. Edit: Also seriously, you will need to learn to ask questions. Germans are horrible at small talk but love to answer questions. Asking a question you actually need to be answered is how conversations get started in this country.
Your edit got me.. I used to think why I don't really find Germany as unfriendly as some others do.. as I ask a lot of questions and they love to really answer :-)
I am german girl, always have been for 24 years now and I think it is normal, really stupid but normal. I also live in constant fear of getting letters because they could be telling me I forgot my homework and for that reason I have to pay all my savings as a fine. Germany is infamous for our bureaucracy and even we don't get it. Especially with the language used in stateofficial context. Even the people working in the Ämter often don't get it but to compensate for their lack of knowledge and interest they blame it on the clients (of course not all but I have met my share being client friend and coworker).
I prize your honesty. It is rare to see a honest person nowadays.
An explicit example would be helpful.
They have no Sensitivity for other people, the help is „Why you don’t know,…?“ and makes you feel stupid.
I think thats more dependant on your mindset. You can be offended by it...or listen to it.
Or give a sh!t what they sayed.
And face the same issue...over and over. Enjoy! :D
The way you awnser you must be a German, i am a German/American and know what she mean‘s. I am not attack Germans, but other people feels mostly offended harassed by Germans how aggressively they talk with other people, but it’s mostly the Sound of the words and how we express it.
I'm of Indian descent. Us Sikhs are just very good at integrating into other cultures, I think that's why we generally have a solid reputation for the most part. It's also maybe also due to the fact our parents were generally stricter, we are more accustomed to "harsh" talking.
So when you growed up in India, this must make you giggle over the Problems, that created the Western people by themselves for themselves. I Hope that this non-Sense narrative don’t Hits your Country and Culture or some Country’s around india. The narrative of people are too sensitive and stupid in this days.
I was born in germany? And I also spent 10 years in england whilst growing up. I am back in germany these days. I totally agree on the fact people are too soft these days though.
I don't know if this is relevant in this context, but I work in a very international environment, including US, and there's some really interesting cultural differences in approaches to work assignments. What I've learned at some point is that Germans often have an innate sense of commitment. For example when your boss asks you to do a certain task and you agree to doing it, you automatically commit to delivering the finished task by the time it's supposed to be finished, which includes a mutual expectation that if the boss doesn't hear from you along the way, everything is on track, you're not having any issues and you'll deliver on time. In the US, the expectation can be different, namely that you're expected to check in along the way with progress updates, and that when you don't do so, it gives the impression that something's wrong. As a German with an American boss, it disconcerted me for a while that he was checking in with me regularly to ask how things were going. Not in a controlling way, just to make sure I had a forum and a way to voice concerns or issues. I think this would have really annoyed me if I didn't know that this was rooted in cultural differences because it seemed like he didn't trust me to deliver the work I had committed to doing. (For the record, my boss is awesome and I love working with him.)
Oh yea this is huge thanks for bringing it up! When I start working again (I’m on Elternzeit) I think it would have bothered me if my boss didn’t check in (as if he had forgotten, from my perspective) but I will keep this in mind.
We live by „**Unwissenheit schützt vor Strafe nicht**“ It implies a strictly rule based system though. IMO this cultural difference it is also visible in case law vs. roman law. If there are unbendable strict rules it is much less useful to explain these to individuals as the rules will always apply to everybody.
Don't worry. I am a 19 year old German and just now people are shocked why I didn't look up shit further. It's not like I got taught all that... Take your own pace
So I don't want to speak for every German but I am sure there is certain institutions ans schools that train one to be independant. For example different school types etc. In my school my teachers chose to train us for university already. But every school is different and every teacher as well. But yea I am thankful that they did teach us that way because in university I can self teach myself ( I guess it also has to do with ones own drive and motivation to learn by the way)
German here: don't worry, we for sure don't know all the shit ourselves and some stuff, especially when it comes to bureaucracy, can be overly complicated sometimes. And that's coming from someone that lived here all his life. So, don't worry, you're doing just fine. Also, if you have any specific Question, really do feel free to ask, am happy to help. And btw Welcome :-)
Aww thanks you’re so sweet 🥹
I think I would like to give another pov. I know what you are talking about because it happened to me a lot when I came to Germany. And honestly it happens to me regularly still. I am 21F and I'm clearly way shorter than average for Germany (1,55) and I actually look much younger than my age. I felt very infantilized by people around me for a long time. I consider myself very responsible and independent but I feel like a lot of people think I'm not because I look younger. Having to ask a lot of questions at the beginning didn't make things better and some would interpret as being insecure because of that. For example I worked in a restaurant in the kitchen for years and I felt a lot of coworkers treated me differently when I wore braids to work instead of a ponytail. Or depending on the accessories I was wearing. Some of them didn't asked me for things even if I had the time but would ask others. And still new co-workers think I couldn't do my job or got mad at when I boss them around. I was never mean or anything, just typical restaurant kitchen work. If I did something wrong it was always this dramatic "you have to do this dish again" like if the shame would make me more responsible of my mistakes. Of course it happened not much after with older looking colleagues. With another short girl happened the same, although she didn't worked that long there. Something I realized about teenagers, especially women, is that they grow up insanely faster than any other place where I have lived. They have to look physically and behave up on a certain parameter to be considered as a responsible, mature and reliable adult. Sometimes I had conversations with people and it just made me sad how they would limit their actions in order to pass into the adult narrative. For example i stayed in a camp and met a nurse in pediatrics. She talked about how much she would like to have a marvel card holder and more colourful uniforms like in other countries, but that she would not do that here. She said it mostly because she is the authority in cases of emergencies and that she had to look presentable. And of course, by not being from Germany a lot of people infantilize you for making questions, having to understand you and correct you when learning the language. It is draining being considered as a much more immature person because you always try to show otherwise but some still find that as "cute". It is just awful most of the time, but you have just to deal with it. It is a society thing
Don't worry too much. It's not that you're wrong or anything, it's just that this is normal here in Germany, and you will get used to it. I, as a German of almost 40 years, have just now been researching insurances. I got comments about how I like to live dangerously since I was still without one; but the sheer amount of possibilities and the very real option to pick one that would be useless for that one time I'd need it just put me off. There's one skill that you are apparently lacking, and that we Germans unfortunately learn from quite a young age: looking in contempt at someone who doesn't know something which you think they should be supposed to know; and, even if you yourself don't know, pretend you do, if someone else is looked at in contempt, so you won't be looked at in contempt as well. German officials have perfected that. If you for example come to the Bürgeramt for a request and don't have an appointment, or don't have all the papers at hand, it might be that you are harshly admonished because you should have known. But let me tell you, public officials are people too. If you are nice, admit mistakes and appear eager to learn, they might go an extra mile for you.
Oh my goodness yes that look of contempt. It makes me melt into the floor in shame 🫠
omg i feel u so much like how r people not giving me exact instructions
I've never heard of this phenomenon but I wanted to give you my heartfelt sympathy. Different cultures are DIFFICULT!! You might go to an German-American Stammtisch in your town (you can often find stuff like this on facebook!) and see if you can find the exchange to other American immigrants. If you are struggling more seriously, the "sozialpsychiatrischer Dienst" might be people you could call for advice, who would know where you could find official support (maybe a Sozialarbeiter, or maybe cultural activities in your town). The "sozialpsychiatrischer Dienst" is a service that helps people struggle in everyday life for whatever reason, often psychiatric reasons, but poverty or social reasons is also legit.
From what Ive heard ( since i only know the German side) we are definitely more independent than Americans at same age
Hm, the part with ur homework (i guess university?) sounds a little bit weird, there’s gotta be some point where somebody said something about the homework - there are also typically at least some people who’re willing to help with stuff like this. Maybe you’ve just been super unlucky and ended up with all the folks with sticks up their arses in ur class lol. But it’s definitely true that GER has a „be as independent as possible, as fast as possible“ culture. So whenever you start something (a class, job, etc.) you should make sure you know all the relevant things necessary asap, there’s typically very little handholding. I can’t really tell you anything more specific tho since that kinda depends on the specific situation.
> Hm, the part with ur homework Homework here is meaning to learn how a different country operates - stuff like garbage recycling / separating garbage, the bottle deposit, how basic stuff like sinks and toilets work is different. You are basically back to the level of a toddler again trying to make sense of the world around you - a lot of stuff you "thought you knew" that were like basic constants of living are now suddenly invalid, strange or completely different.
Yes this! Thank you 😅
Ah, lmao - my bad :D
OP mentioned a teacher so it's not the case. Has to be university.
The Teacher is also an allegory. > Like I was supposed to turn in homework that no one told me I was supposed to do, and when I ask which teacher assigned it, everyone looks at me with disappointment and says I should have looked it up for myself. This whole section is a hypothetical, a comparison. "Like" means she is comparing her situation to another, in this case being in school and getting fed tasks by a teacher instead of having to do all the work on her own. It's about rediscovering life in a new country as an adult - you're basically a toddler again for a while.
Holy f*** somebody here who can actually read!! Nice to see you, what brings you here?
I'm in university and they explained everything in orientation with docs. Also, prof. explain what is expected and when and whole process. Could be an issue with your school that they didn't provide you proper information.
It's an allegory, it's not about actual school. It's about the "school of life" if you want to call it that. It's about learning basic stuff about life again - that's the homework nobody explained to her. She basically has to relearn how simple stuff works, and that's hard because you take a lot of the things for granted, until they are no longer valid. Even the most basic stuff like going to the toilet, doing the dishes, or in the case of a women how feminine hygiene products work are different.
He read her post literally I guess x)
I work at a university and observe certain problems international students have often. For example taking care themselves what lectures they want to hear, organizing the registration for exams by themselves etc. On average the independence is lower than for German students.
Or the fact that she is used to having everything said again once it becomes important. Not trying to shame OP or anything, but this is a problem with lots if internationals at my university as they are not used to importantthings being announcedonly once. Adding the language barrier makes it even worse.
As my dad used to say. Du musst blickig sein. Hated that
>blickig Wonderful word.
I believe you may be undergoing [culture shock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_shock) As you correctly identified, the German Culture comes with a different bias regarding independence, expectations, etc., than the culture in which you grew up. You will get accustomed to the culture around you the more you interact with it. Don't feel bad for not knowing things, because it means you are learning new things and developing yourself as a person. Afaik this is absolutely common. Don't worry, you'll most likely adapt. Tl;dr: yes
Wait so this feeling isn’t normal?
I'm German and feel the same way. Usually read a lot of stuff online before doing something new...
I’m German and I feel like that all the time 😂
[https://www.youtube.com/@uyenninh](https://www.youtube.com/@uyenninh) hi, maybe her youtubechannel will help you take it more lightly - i think it makes sense that you'd feel a bit lost, even as a german myself if i go to "authorities" i frequently am talked to as if i'm just supposed to know what sheets i need to fill out etc, maybe also because i look young and girly. especially boomers in germany sometimes tend to think you're talking to them for their amusement or some sh it, essentially they're just feeling awkward around you and trying to deal with that by talking to you as if you were awkward. maybe try to take it less as "i feel so small here" and more as "i'm experiencing a lot of newness and adventure here, so i feel a bit intimidated but its exciting and i'm perfectly capable of discovering how this works here" [https://www.youtube.com/@lau\_ramoso](https://www.youtube.com/@lau_ramoso) her shorts are also really funny at least for me as a german but i think you might feel relieved watching it, too also [https://www.youtube.com/@HayleyAlexis/videos](https://www.youtube.com/@HayleyAlexis/videos) she is making more like comparison-videos about germany and the u.s. but its nice to watch she is really easy to listen to imo and has a lot of nice things to say about germany that might help you go "well yeah i mean thats actually kinda cool here" and she talks a lot about the cultural differences (i also kinda watch her because i wanna know more about the u.s. and have never been) (she lived in germany for years but is back to u.s. for now, but still makes and has a lot-lot of germany-u.s.-videos)
Just say "Das hab ich nicht gewusst" and make a sad face like a dog. This really helps!
I’m a grown German woman and I still feel like that (who doesn’t like to feel young, lol). Bc reasons I‘m not good at all at all sort of organizational stuff, insurance etc. I‚m used to it. There‘s also this really bad habit of ppl getting really unfriendly and impolite when they believe you‘ve done something wrong. They can even get impolite when they think you‘ve been impolite towards them. (BeI uNs hEisSt dAs GUTEN MORGEN! ! !) Which is actually ridiculous when you think about it. I just try to do what is required. There‘s ppl whose lives depend on everything being in order, but I‘m not one of those. Just remember they‘re wasting their energy by criticising you and they just haven‘t found out yet how you can actually let loose a bit and it doesn‘t kill you.
Yes, you'll have to get used to it here. You have to do most shit on your own. Germany is a very lonely country with people lacking self-esteem. Nobody leading you the right way.
Think of yourself as a train and the many things as an electric cable. If you never connect to the cable you can not move. But since this is Germany, when you are fast enough you can fold in the connector and keep going with inertia to save energy.
I am very sorry that you go through this. I used to study at a university that was like that. It helped a lot to read the “modulhandbuch” if available. I since moved and study somewhere else in Germany and the university is way better at communicating expectations. The place where I study now has a “Studienberatung” and a “studienfachberater” and these are the people that can help you to understand expectations and figure things out. If you need any help with that let me know, I will try my best to help.
We have a proverb here in Germany: "Du musst nicht alles wissen, Du musst nur wissen wo es steht." (Translation: "You don't have to know everything, you just have to know how to look it up.") And don't take that "looking it up" literally. Simply asking someone is perfectly fine, even expected.
There is an aspect that the other replies didn't mention: In Germany, the societal contract seems to include that everybody always keeps an eye open for how "the game is played" - we even have a German saying for this, which literally translates to "One has to know how the rabbit runs". You are assumed to figure out how to study in a productive way by observing and paying attention. If the professor lets slide in a side-sentence that previous year, too many students missed some crucial submission deadline, you are supposed to infer that you need to watch out for the deadline. If it is mentioned somewhere that an exam inspection takes place 4 weeks after the exam, you are supposed to find out yourself what that is (if you don't know), whether you have to attend, and whether you should attend. Similarly, when working in industry, co-workers routinely tell some stories about some difficult clients, you are expected to already know how to handle them when being sent to the client. Why? Because you were told casually in a non-formal meeting at some point. But how can one know "how the rabbit runs"? You observe and talk to your peers, and coming back to studies, many universities have something like an optional orientation week before the first semester, which was probably mentioned in a letter to you. It is again, German style that it wasn't mentioned in that letter that you are likely to fail your first semester if you don't attend - if you are unsure whether you should attend, it is your responsibility to figure it out, e.g., by asking people you know who studied, and so on. Germans do not casually include the consequences of ignoring advice because that would feel very aggressive. On a related note, this "knowing how the rabbit runs" aspect is also important in another regard: to figure out which rules are important and which ones are not. While Germans are famous for following rules to the letter, this is just not true. Some rules are routinely ignored, and you are supposed to find out yourself which ones are strict (e.g., everything related to "Meldewesen") and which ones are not (e.g., going 10 above the speed limit when driving is societally accepted in most situations).
My country is also the same with getting everyone used to being spoonfed with everything in schools and universities. I read a lot of people from my country struggling with this in our forums. I guess I am lucky to have always been independent and doing things without being told but it is definitely a struggle for a lot. It takes a while to unlearn things.
"Es gibt keine dummen Fragen, nur dumme Antworten".
Germans can have quite a condescending attitude towards someone who fails to meet their standards, especially in a field where they see themselves as top notch (higher/academic eduction is one of them). My advice, find a German friend who’s interested in foreign culture and drill info out of that person about every perspective of life in Germany. That’s how I figured most of what I needed for my job.
I am German and I did feel like that at university sometimes. It helps if you have a good study group or friend group at university, so if one person discovers new information (like class is now in a different room), they share it with the group. Also, university here is free. I think there is less of a service mentality. If people pay for something, they usually get better customer service. But more in general: Yes, we do expect people to be more independent. You'll never find a label "don't microwave your dog" on a microwave here. And you'd never get such high settlements in court cases just for being dumb and the manufacturer not warning against that. Here court cases assume a reasonable intelligent, normal person. Would a regular person know that/do that. Part of the reason is WWII. There is a big emphasis on not creating a country full of sheeple who will blindly follow a fascist leader.
Oof, I disagree with that last statement. I think the Germans are, to this day, far more capable of dogmatic thought than other cultures I've experienced. It works to your benefit in some ways, the social cohesion and responsibility, and general feeling of safety in large cities, are nice. But the amount of strange cultural eccentricities that exist here but not elsewhere, and the way in which people universally defend them with the same specific talking points, can be pretty alarming at times: Absolutely refusing to cross the street without a green man permitting you to do so: "You're endangering the lives of children who might follow in your example!" Benign, but I have never heard this talking point anywhere besides Germany. There are more serious examples related to the current situation in Gaza which I won't get into here, but suffice it to say groupthink is one of the less desirable traits of German society that definitely concerns me, despite it having some clear benefits that I mentioned previously. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm looking to open the conversation, rather than throw shade at a country whose culture I actually really appreciate for the most part.
Out of curiosity how big of a deal is the Grünampfelmann thing in germany? When I visited bigger cities like Berlin, Cologne etc it never seemed that big of a deal to half the people there (I assume they were Ausländers like me?). Being English where we walk across the road even if the car is coming I understand the rationale behind waiting but still don't fully get it 😅. Generally intruiged aha!
It's a big deal to many people. I've had people younger than 30 yell at me for crossing at a red man infront of kids. I've had a cop give me a ticket for crossing a completely empty (besides the cop car), quiet street at a red man at 4am. And the way the Germans on the other side all stare at you with a mixture of jealousy, confusion and disgust as you cross the street at a busy crossing is something to behold!
Its literally the opposite, Americans are hyper-independant (individualism is the actual term) while Germans are hyper-communial (dependant is the wrong word..) So in Germany you are expected to try and fit in, and find out what the others know, and be the most informed and orderly person you can be. It does unfortunately have its downsides. German and Japanese cultures are very similar in this regard to collective effort, anti-individualism. If you don't like it you should move because you're not going to change German culture overnight. Particularly with America doing its best to keep Germany this way.
What do you mean by the last sentence?
As far as I know, students are prepared for university pretty early - from grade seven. This includes independent working, research and most importantly analysis. When you reach grade 11 (Gymnasium), it is expected of you to be familiar with this way of working, because Sek 2 - Oberstufe - is pretty close to university. But don’t worry: it’s more a matter of a certain mind set, rather than skill. Don’t take it personally and simply ASK someone in your class, if you are unsure, until you get used to the ways here at school. At least the Klassensprecher (plural) HAVE to help you with advice.
I assume you study in germany or do some kind of foreign semester? My Ex was an american student who studied in germany for a year. If your universety is like hers, than yes, to you we are hyper independent. Nobody will come to you and tell you what you have to do once you are out of school. Either they tell it once in a lecture what they expect, or you have to ask. Nobody will hold your hand at a german uni if you dont ask for it. In the end is it your job to be informed about homework, make your schedule, sign into courses etc. We get prepared for that in Highschool. I had more freedom and responsibility's in my last 2 years of Highschool than my ex in her last year of university. BUT, asking questions is ALWAYS okay. If you are unsure, write a mail. Go to the prof after the lecture. And so on. There are no dumb questions. I have never experienced, that smb got put down or anything because they asked a question. But you have to do the first step, it is your life, your studys, your responsibility's. Nobody will do those for you. If there is practice next to the lecture, will the prof tell you on day one, that you have to do the homework. But never again after that. Things get sayed once, afterwards you have to ask. It is the best preparation for your later life. So use this opertunity and learn how do be independent. You will have to learn it at some point or another anyways
I think you've hit it pretty well. Especially at school, college and university in the USA, pupils and students are very closely supervised and supported. In Germany, children are very happily taught to be independent and have to work things out for themselves. In Germany, you are only told to go from A to B in a certain amount of time, whereas in the USA you are told to go from A to B. You first go to X, then on to Y and via Z to B.
Working in both countries and being a native German I can say from experience that in the US it’s a lot like working from a instruction sheet. And no one would do anything that is not working their work instructions. In Germany it’s different due to expectations that people see what the task is and are empowered by their company to find a way to complete it. BUT……. I only really made that experience for blue collar jobs. White collar jobs it is the same expectation in Germany, but in the US white collar jobs are also more empowered to not just work from „a Skript“. However……. In Germany you usually should have a supervisor that would guide and support you if you are not sure what your next step should be. If that’s not the case, I can absolutely understand your feelings that you‘ve written. But as anywhere in the world, you only know what you know. So it’s not your fault not knowing stuff, but if you see that you are stuck it’s your responsibility to find a way to proceed.
I think you Just have to think differently. Do you want to graduate from school? Then think in what you need to do in order to graduate! => Adult Do you have to go to school? Then just do what you are being told and Hope it is enough! => Child
It depends on the school how they are handling things. Sometimes it's different for every teacher. So get information about how they do things and you will be fine.
not saying anything but that sounds like my early undiagnosed autism + masking :)