It’s been awhile! Absence is a good thing, it means I’ve been busy :) Contrary to what I may have said about classes being much more relaxed than at WPI, I’m starting to better understand the expectations of taking classes at HTWG. The professors really do leave everything up to the student besides actual lecture time. Having little assigned homework makes the stuff that is assigned from time to time, hard to remember to do or motivate myself to do (Newton’s first law). And with the weather becoming more beautiful each day, all anyone wants to do is sit riverside and bask in the sun with friends.
I have never taken semester long college classes thanks to the term system at WPI that breeds short attention spans. I’ve had classes in which the grade is only made up of three exams but never one, cumulative exam packed with information from the previous four months. If I’m going to pass it will require simply more outside review and reading time.
Another thought: school here feels much more like a lifestyle than going to college. At WPI, when you’re taking classes, the only thing that seems to matter in those seven weeks is doing what it takes to pass and nothing else. That may be an exaggeration but for the most part, fun happens on the weekends only and going to your doctors appointment or getting your car fixed waits. In Konstanz, when the working day ends, anything work related is dropped until maybe 9am the next day. Which is why the idea of me staying up at night to click through PowerPoint slides like I do at WPI seems
preposterous in my current surroundings.
Business aside, Abby was able to visit me here for a week before we spent my Easter break in Prague. We took a day trip to Zurich and I advised her of the best places around Konstanz to see including the islands of Reichenau and Mainau, the Black Forest, and the Altstadt (old town).
Mainau is a private island owned by a Swedish royal family that has been turned into a botanists paradise, covered in flower gardens, a butterfly sanctuary, a castle, a petting zoo, and most well known for its tulips and orchids. Spring is the best time to go I believe and it was incredible how manicured the whole island was.
Zurich is a clean city of course, being in Switzerland, full of churches, expensive, but honestly not super riveting to visit since the country really doesn’t have much exciting history to talk about.
See the gallery for lots of photos, I’ll write a separate entry about Prague!
