Member-only story
I am living in Germany for almost 2 years now, and indeed I have learned a lot about the culture and society here. It is quite inevitable to not compare it in my mind with my home country, Albania. There is something especially, that I find very interesting about Germany, even shocking in the beginning. The way they teach self-responsibility to their citizens.
When I first started studying for my Master's degree in TUM, I was really surprised to have the possibility to choose the courses I wanted to take. I understand that was partially because my degree in Management and Technology is structured like that, however, even other degrees offer choices. To me, being used having a settled program and courses I had to follow throughout my studies, was confusing and even stressful. I kept saying to my friends back home, “Why don’t they just give me a program to follow? I can’t decide!”
But the possibility to freely choose my courses was not the only thing that surprised me. Different from my previous university, where attendance was mandatory and could even affect my grade, here nobody really cared if I came to the class or not. If you want to come, good for you. If you don’t want to come and would prefer self-studying, good for you again. And since all my life I have been a self-studying person, I chose to study from home. But there was also something else I found strange, most of the time there are no assignments given during the year. And if there are, they are just for bonus points, but they won’t affect your grade. Crazy, right?
Now, I really couldn’t understand this system. I was used to having external pressure, let it be grades, deadlines, and attendance. And here I had total freedom. I was pretty sure there was something wrong with this system. So, I asked a German friend about it, and his answer surprised me, but it also made total sense. He said, “TUM gives you total freedom because you are a self-responsible adult who can make choices about your life.” And that hit me hard, my friends. And it doesn't stop here. This is not something that is applied only in universities, but also at work and in everyday life.
I asked my boss at work the other day, “Why don’t you give us a deadline or implement a reward/punishment system, so I know that if I don’t…
