Tomorrow is the first day of orientation for the Willy Brandt School class of 2015.  It's a full schedule from 9am to 4pm with an assortment of activities, including the typical welcoming speeches and get-to-knows, as well as a campus tour. I'm pretty excited because I haven't been to the campus yet, so everything will be new for me. I don't expect the buildings to be spectacularly beautiful or interesting, unlike American universities, German schools are cheap, meaning they don't get a lot of tuition money to pay for brand new things all the time. When there are 25,000 students, with many of them paying $15k or $20k a year for school, one could expect fancy new buildings, indoor training facilities, buffet style cafeterias and the like. But at a little more than $4,000 a year, the education is the main focus.

I'm not only interested in seeing the school, but also getting to meet some of my fellow classmates. I've met a few of them already, but just briefly. I went out to have a drink with some of them on Friday, including people hailing from Canada, Nepal, India, China, Austria, Egypt, Brazil, Jordan, the Philippines, and more Canadians. So far everyone was quite friendly, and I'm excited to get to know them better. I think it will be a pleasant change of pace working with people who are genuinely interested in the school, unlike many of my undergraduate classes at University of Iowa. Here I imagine that I will spend a lot of my time in class listening to intelligent conversation with people from all over the world, and with varying degrees and work experiences. Being younger and inexperienced, I have a lot to learn from my new classmates. I'll be happy not being the only one to drive discussions and shaking my head, silently cursing the multitudes of bad comments from the girl with the sweatpants and Uggs and too much foundation, or the dude with the backwards Chicago cubs hat, a football t-shirt, and basketball shorts.

But I must rest now, I have to wake up early and traveling by public transport is slightly more time intensive than my usual 1 mile bicycle commute.