Berlin is a Very Enjoyable City to Live in
I had a great experience while studying at Humboldt University. What I really liked was the opportunity to study in German; I had very interesting lectures and seminars. I felt full of enthusiam to study. What I also found very interesting is that the seminars are organized so that there is always a group of people responsible for a text, who moderate the seminar themselves. This small organizational trick considerably changes the role of students during a seminar. On one occasion, I was really surprised when the professor, because of some unforeseen situation, did not manage to come to the seminar and was unable notify us about it beforehand. After waiting for about 15 minutes the students decided to begin the seminar without the professor and we just had a normal seminar with two reports. This experience was really unusual but also inspiring.
Humboldt University is great educational environment and has a very well thought-out infrastructure. There are multiple university libraries, the biggest of which works 7 days a week. Although it opens at 8 a.m. and works till midnight on working days there always plenty of people there. There is a huge internal garden with a lot of trees and a green lawn, and the different facilities and nice design are additional details which make the everyday life of students very comfortable and pleasant.
Berlin is a very enjoyable city to live in. It is not too huge (when compared to Moscow) but gives a variety of opportunities to study, work, spend leisure time and of course to visit some cultural events. Another great advantage is that it is very cheap.
At the very beginning of the 6 month exchange program it was a bit difficult, because everything was utterly new, but the international office and international club of the University supported me a lot and helped to make this orientation period much easier.