Hannah's Real-Life: Studying

Although most of my stories play in either fictional universes or the U.S. of A., I'm from Europe and have never been to the Americas (except for Costa Rica, but never mind that). In these days, it almost doesn't matter where a person is from, we are all interconnected and global and able to exchange information in a matter of glimpses from one end of the world to the other; I sometimes catch myself suppressing this fact and then being surprised that people don't know how things work in my part of the world.
To remedy this, here's a small piece about studying in Austria (and Germany for that matter, it's rather similar).

There are three types of institutions a person can go to after highschool, which is called either "Oberstufe des Gymnasiums", meaning something like senior classes of secondary school, or senior classes in HAK, HTL, and other abbreviations that ultimately stand for specialized secondary schools (HAK is business/economy oriented, HTL is technology oriented):

• University,
• College,
• Fachhochschule (FH) - something like technical college or polytechnic

Here it gets tricky, because university and college aren't the same thing in Austria.
A university is a publicly funded institution with EU-wide recognized degrees and certificates, whereas a college is a privately funded institution with sometimes rather dubious degrees and certificates, that sometimes are recognized in the U.S., but nowhere else.
Hence, most people go to university or an FH, because honestly, certificate! Also, both of those types of institution are more or less for free. It's true that there are costs at some point, but those are aimed at what we lovingly call "bemoostes Haupt", or "mossy heads", people who spend their whole life doing nothing but being a student.
But back to universities!
The most poignant difference to the U.S. is its structure in general. Universities consist of a multitude of buildings and branches that are scattered all over a city, a little like this:

Each of those buildings represents a main branch of studies and unifies another dozen or so of institutes that are - again - scattered over the city like confetti on your birthday party. When I studied biology, I sometimes had to take the cable cars and subway trains two or three times a day to get from one lecture to the next and spent most of my time in public transport, reading and working through my notes.
There's also no boarding for students. Hah, well, there is, actually, but it looks a little like this:

Nope, no walking out of your room and into the lecture hall for us! Everyone has to organize their own living situations, which often means renting an apartment and sharing it with someone, buying your own tickets for the subway and cable car and cooking your own meals. That whole "free education" stint actually costs a ton of money, because you still have to pay rent, buy food, pay taxes and get your own books and hardware, and although there are special concessions for students, studying still adds up to a hefty monthly sum. Students here are required to act like adults, at least in some aspects.
Which brings me to lecture plans, because holy hell, that's some crazy stuff.

Nobody. Tells. You. What. You. Need.
I am not kidding. You register for your major and get some kind of table with modules on it, very basic stuff. So-and-so-many ECTS (study points) to finish module this-and-that, that's all. Or not, because now you have to work through a database of each and every lecture, seminar, field trip, tutorial, laboratory course and whatever else might be needed for any and every field of study offered at one city, all of them sorted by index numbers and rather nebulous specifications as to what module might be influenced by taking it.
An example:

300026 VO Introduction to Cognitive Biology (2016W)

3.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 30 - Biologie
Classification for:

BZO 10, BAN 6, BOE 11, BPB 11, BMG 10, BMB 10, BBO 8, B-BZO 10, B-BAN 8, B-BMG 11, B-BMB 10, B-BOE 11, B-BPB 12, B-BPF 8, UF BU 10,

Those letters and numbers down there are Modules from eight different specializations a biology bachelor student can choose. This lecture is one of up to thirteen different lectures per each and every specialization, and most of them aren't recurring, so even older students aren't always able to help. In some semesters, there aren't enough lectures or courses to fill the required ECTS amount a student needs to keep his education free of charge, so planning my lectures and courses sometimes felt like choosing battle tactics to me.
Nobody monitors your success or how much you study but yourself and your parents. There are no notices and no report cards if you don't actively pursue getting one (for special concessions, for example), and nobody nags you to take exams or work harder. All of it rests on a student's shoulders and if he doesn't apply himself, well. At some point he'll have to pay a semester entrance fee, and at some later point - especially if a student repeatedly fails an exam - he'll be expelled, but that's it.

I failed at biology, partly because I underestimated the amount of work I'd have to put in just maintaining my education, but partly because I'm just not that into science. I found this out in my third year, failed an exam three times and decided to let it be.
Not studying, though. I'll be taking my entrance exam for a lectureship major at the end of August and start this madness over!
This time, I'll keep you up to date and entertain you with tales of European education, because why not? You already know how America works. Time for new insights!

Love,
Hannah