Dark_Silence said:
I have the "allgemeine Geologie" book. Actually it is pretty good, and contains things for several classes. Wich means that for some of the classes I dont need to take very good notes because it is all in that book. I just have to find where in the book, because the classes dont always follow the order of the chapters in the book.
hey, I like that book, too, I think it´s pretty well organized
About the other books you possibly need, maybe you´ll find them at the library? At least at my uni there are always two types of libraries, one for the whole uni, and then a specific one for each subject, which has more detailed stuff. And the "Fachschaft", yes, that´s a term not known in all German countries, because universities are organized differently in each one, there are not exactly the same laws in for example Hamburg and Bavaria, so it might be that it´s called by another term, but I guess some_kind of student group might be there to ask, or maybe a secretary or someone could point you towards advanced students who help tutoring, too. The web-thing is a good idea, too.
All in all, I think you would just need a little time to get the hang of it all, and most doesn´t seem to be because of a different new country, but beginner´s worries in general.
But one thing I noticed, I went as a visitor to a Belgian school (Lyzee) twice, once in the German-speaking and once in the French-speaking part, for a school-exchange. That´s not much experience, but maybe a bit, and I think the difference is that Germany is more used to tons of discussions and very independently working students/pupils, while the Belgian/French system is more into pupils not questioning the teachers, and many things you need to know for learning (also the methods or books) are given, while here you often need to find all that by yourself, like you get assigned a topic and are expected to dig out the relevant books by yourself, because they think finding and identifying the main stuff is part of the task.
Also for example, what you mentioned, that the classes don´t follow the book in its order, that illustrates what I mean with that you have to make your learning independent, and have to get your information from many sources. It might also be that one course refers to singular chapters out of different books or papers, because professors will adapt stuff the way they think it´s correct to teach it, and depending on where they want to make emphasizes.
I don´t know of course if my experience could be generalized, and it was very briefly; I just mean to say that maybe it´s mostly a normal beginner´s trouble, and a bit also from different mentalities, both of which you can learn to deal with, so studying should become much nicer in a few weeks and months. Good luck for your exams! And try to find previous ones, so you´ll have an idea of the wording and the way the questions are posed.
