Classes and Universität Stuttgart

In America we have a catalogue with a paragraph description of every course. You register for classes long before going to them.
Here in Germany, there isn't a catalogue at all. You don't register for classes, only tests. You only receive the name of the course along with what building and what time it is. You're expected to go to the first two weeks of class just to see if you want to go to it or not. Classes are only once a week, so it's not THAT bad, but come on. The tests are really only dependent on what the instructor wants. It can be an oral presentation that you've been researching yourself for the entire semester, or just a 10-20 page paper about a certain subject.
The grading system is 1,2,3,4, or 5. 1 is best, 5 is fail. If you fail a class twice, you cant register for the test anymore. If you don't finish a test in a required class, you don't graduate. They really try to make it seem that you should be honored to have to work so hard to get anything done here.

Since the beginning of September all the new international students had to go to an "intensive german course" to bring our german up to speed. We finished 2 weeks ago. Today I finished my first real Deutsch als Fremdsprache (german as a foreign language) classes at the Universität Stuttgart. I took three today, and jesus christ... what have our "intensive course" instructors been doing for the past month and a half? I swear that we haven`t been prepared at all for what we are expected to do here. There were people in the DaF(Deutsch als Fremdsprache) classes who have been here for years. I'm only taking DaF classes... how can we do anything but fail in real classes that we can take??

I'm going to another VfB Stuttgart Fußball game on Saturday, and there is a Halloween party Monday night, to check back for updates. I also posted all the DTM (Deutschen Tourenwagen Masters) pics on my webshots page. The link is to the right.

Tschüß