Final Post

Where do I begin to talk about this semester for German 110? It was a very interesting class and I enjoyed it a lot. I think the best thing that was learnt was all the general information that we covered. Splitting the sections up talking about different topics each week made for a lot of different things to be explored. I especially liked the last two projects we did where groups picked a topic (for me leaders and industry). It covered all the important bases and it was interesting. My group talked about famous leaders of the 19^th century, something that I went into without and prior knowledge. Leaders such as Otto Von Bismarck played an important role in understanding the balance of power and the struggle to unify Germany. I would say that I like history so that presentation was very interesting to me. Jumping back I very much liked the book we read, All Quiet on the Western Front. It was very real feeling book, documenting the struggles of soldiers in world war one. There were so many themes and avenues of topics in the book, it made for some good reading. We each did reports on selected chapters and it made for good recap of what was read and it gave a deeper analysis into the story. My chapter in particular featured Paul returning home from the front. It depicted his struggle of being a changed person returning to a place that seemed foreign even though it was home. We also watched the movie which I did not find to be quite as good as the book but with the restrictions of move story telling at the time they did very well portraying the book. On the topic of movies, Berlin calling is bound to be one of the biggest highlights of the class. I imagine (having not been there) that the movie followed a growing subculture of Germany. It told a story that I have heard before; A man loses everything, he turns his life around, comes out stronger because of it. However, his movie covered it very well. It was interesting to see the difference in how movies are done in Germany. The movie was really good and I’m happy to have seen it.

Overall the class was very fun and much better than I had expected. I feel as if I learned a lot of general knowledge about Germany and that’s good because that’s exactly what the class was about. I feel as if now I can hold a conversation about Germany’s culture, government, or history.