Since 2011 I have been studying English and Linguistics at the local university here in Düsseldorf, Germany. Unlike the universities in the anglophone world, universities in my local state of North-Rhine Westphalia do not require students to pay tuition (merely a small fee for the free train ticket every semester, which currently is about 280€). Education is supposed to be free for everyone in Germany. German universities also don’t have a strict selection process in their applications – there is merely a regulation by average grade (something like GPA). Based on the intake of students in a particular degree program in the previous year, an average grade is required to get into that major/minor. My major of English Studies at my university requires something like an average grade of 1.7, however, some majors don’t require an average at all – e.g. Jewish Studies. So if you have a high school degree, it’s fairly easy to get into a German university. This of course leads to a massive overcrowding of universities, since there are no true restrictions and no selective process as for example a university like Harvard would have.

So, with about 27.000 students currently enrolled, our university is already overcrowded. But next year this situation might take an even more extreme turn. With a change in the German educational system, not one but two graduating high school grades will commence their studies in North-Rhine Westphalia. Though the head of our university claims that our campus is prepared for yet another immense increase in students, the reality will be quite different.

The total number of students at my university has been continually increasing in the past, with the university having taken in about an additional 2000 students every fall. The lack of space was already obvious in my first semester in 2011 – in several classes, the lecture hall was so overcrowded that many students had to sit on the stairs and it was almost impossible to hear the lecturer over the noise of 200+ people. It also often seems the case that rooms are booked which are either too big or too small for a specific course, and there is no proper organizational process too exchange such rooms between courses.

Additional complications which unfolded in the summer semester of 2012, are both the renovation of four lecture halls faculty and the problem of PCB contamination in the faculty of arts and humanities, which is hazardous to the health of those who are exposed to it. To clarify, my university is a relatively young one – build in the 1960s, a time when the hazards of several building materials were not yet discovered. Thanks to the sixties it is also quite ugly.

The renovation of the lecture halls was planned ahead for a while. Many students didn’t understand this and didn’t see the necessity in renovating these particular lecture halls, which appeared to be fine – whereas many of the lecture halls in the mathematical faculty suffer from visible water damage. But the reason behind the renovation of the humanities lecture halls are somewhat convincing once properly communicated to students (which the university can’t seem to do); those four lecture halls are poorly insulated and waste a large amount of energy for air conditioning and heating. For that reason, the state of NRW has granted the owner of the university buildings a large sum of money which may only be used for the specific purpose of renovating these lecture halls within a specified time frame. Therefore it was impossible to wait, for example, until after the double intake of students.

Our lovely campus with its ugly buildings
Our lovely campus with it’s ugly buildings
However, a much more problematic complication is that of PCB contamination in the faculty of arts and humanities. This was discovered shortly before the renovation of the lecture halls commenced and has since caused the additional closing of several parts of the building, because it was deemed hazardous to the health of students and employees to be exposed to contaminated areas. These closings mostly affected offices of lecturers, but several seminar rooms were among them as well. Employees are much more affected by the PCB contamination than students, because unlike students, they usually spend their entire day in their offices. Students go from classroom to classroom every 90 minutes and are usually exposed to enough fresh air to deal with the contamination.

As a short term solution to the space problem, two containers were built behind the library. These offered 8 new and somewhat spacious rooms for classes to be held in. However, they were not a very effective replacement; they lacked proper desks which increased the difficulty in taking notes during a class, they had bad acoustics and they were chilly in winter. They were also quite big, making them either too big for small classes or too noisy for big classes. They have since been torn down again because they also had a severe problem with mold during the winter, which was spread by the air conditioning system.

Next to their previously occupied space, a large row of new containers has been erected 3 stories high, in which now primarily offices from more contaminated areas of the humanities faculty are moving in. I am curious how long these new containers will last. However, for me it is incomprehensible why the university has invested in these containers when a proper new building in the same location might have been much more advantageous – especially in light of new rumors that are currently surfacing: it is said that the faculty of humanities might have to be torn down completely, because the PCB contamination is too extreme. This would create a space problem of epic proportions, because the faculty of humanities is the faculty with the largest amount of students and they would have pretty much no place to go. Spreading them over the rooms of the other faculties would only work for a small percentage of degree programs. That also makes things more annoying, because the way from class 1 to class 2 might be a 10 minute walk instead of a what previously was a 2 minute walk. I don’t even want to know how annoying it would be if the university would have to use off-campus locations for teaching. It takes about 15-20 minutes to go to the university by subway from the main station, so you can imagine how long a trip between a class at the campus to a class at an off-campus location would take.

This brings me to the next problem: aside from the building situation, infrastructure is another big problem. With the campus being in a decentralized location within the city of Düsseldorf, most students rely on public transportation to get to university. However, there is only one main subway line to the university, provided by the local transportation authority (there are some buses and a tram line, but they are by far not as frequented as the subway line). Though there are extra cars in the mornings around the time most students have to get to class, even those are so overcrowded that it is impossible to squeeze in if you, like me, happen to have to get in one station past the main train station of the city (many students from out of town get in at the main station). The university has to consider this as well in their preparation for the double intake of students and encourage or even finance several more trains for the main travel times. I’m extremely glad that I don’t have to rely on public transportation. Instead, I usually get to university by bicycle, which takes about 20 minutes. In order to avoid the overcrowded subway, I even use my bike when it’s raining, which I don’t mind due to my weatherproof gear (though it’s not quite as comfortable). Only when I’m feeling seriously ill or when it’s below -1 C° do I have to use the subway.

With poor infrastructure and whole buildings beings closed down with no replacement, containers are not a space-efficient substitute. The campus of this university is already very constrained to its limits, and there are not many spaces where a new building might be built. However, in the long run the university will have to make use of the few leftover spots to accommodate its increasing numbers of students. It is very unlikely that this will happen before the double intake of students.

This is a summary of the space-related things that are wrong with my university – a lot of German universities face the same problems, as a lot of them were also built in the 1960s. Overcrowding is probably a problem at almost all of them (also the older ones with a long history), as more and more German high school graduates want to earn an academic degree, even though they might not really be suited for that… you wouldn’t believe the stupidity I sometimes overhear in my classrooms. This creates social problems on a whole new level, as Germans don’t want to go into crafts anymore because they regard that as “dirty work” and leave it to the immigrants from less advantaged countries.

Overcrowding also creates problems in social interaction – classes are so big that it’s particularly hard for introverted students like me to find friends. The general atmosphere, especially in English Studies, is very unpersonal – though I see a lot of fellow students in class every few days or every week, I have never talked to 80% of them. If I have talked to them only once, they appear to forget and don’t even say hello anymore. (Maybe it’s the age difference which makes this more difficult – I’m usually 6-9 years older than most of my fellow students). The majority of students of the entire university are terribly unfriendly or just lack manners, because 98% of them would never hold open a door for you or wait for you to go through first. It’s sound silly, but going through doors can be a hassle at my university. And don’t even get me started on the restroom queues. All of this is bound to get worse with yet another big increase in the number of students.

Personally I am glad that I will not experience the double intake of students at my university myself, as I will be in my study abroad semester at The University of Queensland in Australia. I have much higher expectations of my guest university, as unlike German universities it probably has the money to handle problems like those which the university in Düsseldorf faces. I will be curious to find out whether or not I will recognize my home university once I return from Australia for my last semester of my bachelor’s degree.