Berlin Envoy

"I make no judgements," says Gunter Rischer about Harvard. "I am used to a different system." Twenty-five year old Gunter her officially belongs to Dunster House and the class of 1957. When he returns to his home and the Free University of Berlin next year, however, he will be eligible for a Master's Degree in Economics. This incongruance in status exemplifies the contrast Gunter has found between U.S. and German higher education. In agreement with many previous observers, Gunter summarizes these difference through the aims of the two systems; individual scholarship in the German University; citizenship in the American college.

At the Free University, Gunter belongs to no class. He cannot flunk out, has no reading lists, and takes all his major exams immediately before getting his degree. When not attending classes, most Berlin students return to homes and boarding houses only coincidentally located near the campus or each other. "American college students form a community," Gunter explain, "But Germans 'go through' a-university while trying not to let it become an integral part of their lives."

Gunter himself played a large part in the student government of the University, but he considers this dissimilar to U.S. extra-curricular activities. "The main purpose is practical," he states in describing his duties as admissions official and student-faculty representative. In the first of these student-elected posts, Gunter, along with one professor decided on all admissions to his department of study. The next year, as representative for all Berlin's economics students, he joined with regular faculty members in administering the department.

Gunter finds that courses at Harvard tend to restrict students and lecturers along a "uniform path of regulations." While the lack of requirements and outlines for Berlin courses sometimes leads to extremes of laziness or diligence, it does allow each individual at the University to use his own judgement in choosing materials and setting a working pace.

Despite his sophomore status, Gunter has been allowed to take a majority of his courses here in the graduate schools. He finds these fairly similar to the German curriculum, especially in respect to seminars, which are found at all levels at the Free University. General education and distribution requirements do not exist in German universities. Their function is fulfilled by a rigorous secondary school program in which almost all courses are compulsory and students graduate at the approximate level of U.S. College sophomores.

Once at a university, the German student enrolls only in the department of his interest. Gunter, in 1949, entered the Free University's History department and a year and a half later switched to Economics. The Free University was founded only a year before his entry through the efforts and funds of both the West Berlin government and U.S. occupation authorities. With East Berlin's older municipal university under Communist control, students from both halves of the city have continued to crowd the new institution since its birth.

Gunter feels Berlin students and teachers, since their university is practically a living protest against Communism, tend to form the most democratic academic body in West Germany. Fraternities and dueling societies, long the stronghold of nationalistic, anti-semitic, and aristocratic traditions, exert almost no influence on the Berlin campus. Of the few which exist despite non-recognition by the University, a number have abandoned all objectionable traits. Anti-Americanism, according to Gunter, is also sparse, since Berliners in general have felt particular gratitude toward the U.S. ever since the 1948 airlift. The University in particular is thankful for continued U.S. financial support, especially from the Ford Foundation.

Harvard and the Free University have maintained an especially close relationship through the medium of their respective student governments. Gunter's present scholarship, as well as one to be granted a Free University student next year, is financed by the Harvard Student Council from unallocated Combined Charities funds. The Free University faculty and student government, in return, have announced a scholarship for a Harvard student.

In spite of some difficulty in adjusting to a different academic and social environment, Gunter has enjoyed Harvard immensely. The faculty lives up to its international prestige, and although the students are somewhat reserved, he finds them interesting company. Radcliffe girls, Gunter notes, equal the Berlin female students in both charm and prodigious note-taking. There is one element, however, of his Berlin life which Gunter misses with an indefineable longing--the student-frequented bars and coffee houses. "I would have to be a poet to describe this difference," he states. "There is no comparison between a German tavern and Cronin's."