Ein Erfahrungsbericht von accadis-Austauschstudent Vincent Knopf von der Avans Hogeschool in den Niederlanden
Dear Fellow Students,
My name is Vincent Knopf and I am currently studying at accadis Fachhochschule. I was asked to provide you with my opinion on my exchange semester. Without further ado let’s commence.
Studying at accadis might not be what you expect. Namely, I was used to going to school from Monday to Friday with my lessons scattered across the week. At accadis you can have school on Saturday, however, you do not have class every day of the week. This is due to the scheduling of accadis; namely accadis's lessons are in blocks of 6 hours of one subject. You might think this is too long, however there are breaks in between and the lessons are generally very interactive. If you participate in the class the hours will fly by.
Because there is so much time in each block the teachers use interactive methods to get you familiar with the subject. Moreover, the teachers actually do know their subjects very well and they are glad to help you. They are very understanding of foreign students and you can talk to them in English. As I have mentioned the classes are interactive, this means that you are usually assigned to a group of students which you have to work with during the trimester. These group assignments are often linked to recent developments in the market for example mergers of big companies.
The students at accadis are really great, they are very understanding towards foreign students and they do understand that you will have to adjust. However, I do need to stress that moderate understanding of the German language is recommended. You do not need to be a fluent speaker, but you do have to understand German relatively well. This is due to the fact that the lessons are in German and the team meetings are often in German. This does not mean that the students do not speak English with you, but their German is far better than their English.
If you do want to go to accadis, you need to start early at looking for your accommodation since accadis is not located on a campus. Frankfurt is a very big city so if you look for a room, search in which area it is located, since accadis is situated in Bad Homburg to the north of Frankfurt. accadis is easily accessible by train approximately 5 minutes walking from the station to accadis.
I must say that my stay at accadis has been a pleasure and I would highly recommend going to accadis because there are great students, great teachers and most importantly a great education.