The alarm sounds at an unthinkable 7:15am. Is this a mistake? No junior in college has to be awake this early. No juniors except the18 brave film students at the AIB. One might think that a typical day for study abroad students includes sleeping in, waking at maybe 10am, grabbing a coffee and a croissant at the local bakery before heading to class for an hour or two, then out to a pub for a nightcap. I imagined that sort of day for myself at least. I was in for a rude surprise.
As I hit the alarm, I usually decide that I need at least 10 more minutes of sleep. 15 minutes later and I’m up. I run downstairs to grab a quick breakfast (not a bakery croissant, but luckily I can still have a coffee and yogurt). Back upstairs where I frantically get dressed and ready. As I run out the door, I do a mental checklist. Okay I need: my phone, my house key, my wallet, German homework, external hard drive, film homework, among a slew of other items. Out the door when I realize I have to turn my 4-minute walk into a 2-minute walk; the bus leaves at 8:34 and it is now unlikely that I will make it. I begin my frantic sprint to the bus and just as I get to the door, off goes the bus. I wait for another bus, the 8:40, and will be to class 5 minutes late.
We begin German class with our quirky teacher, Hilde. She is full of morning energy that can either be contagious to our lethargic group or have no effect depending on what time we got to bed the night before. Normally we all will make a coffee or tea to help us stay focused as we learn the ins and outs of a rather difficult language. German class ends (if it is one block) at 10. We then have a 15-minute break before we jump into one of film classes. We have directing, cinematography, and editing. We take each class every day for a week, then cycle through. We have a British professor for directing, Andrew, a German cinematography professor, Jens, a German editing professor, Andreas, and Kurt, our LMU professor, aka the sound guy. Each professor is incredibly talented and helpful. Though their styles are quite different, I have already learned so much more than I thought was possible to garner in half a semester.
We get finished with class 5pm, sometimes hanging around the AIB for an hour to finish work and make sure we’re ready for the next day. I have dinner with my host family at 7, chat with them until around 8:45, then back upstairs to finish my homework, Skype friends and family, then to bed to start the process all over again.
Although the set up is similar to high school (early mornings, class all day), I wouldn’t change it for anything. I feel like I am learning a cast amount more than some of my 45-minute long classes. With a few weeks left before we start shooting our documentaries, I imagine we are all going to miss the days we got to sleep in until 7:15am.
Written by: Sarah Bush
