Said Isabel Schmidt, who handles logistics at the Jazz & Rock Schulen for the Berklee students:
“I’m always a fighter for making international friends, because I’m quite convinced that the way to make the world better is to make friends. . . . You don’t make war on your friends.”
First, a cultural note: In Freiburg, people don’t jaywalk, and they definitely don’t get kaffe to go.
With over 20,000 students at the University of Freiburg alone, there’s a housing crunch in this city, said J&RS student advisor Edward Fernbach. When the exchange program began, the Berklee students had to stay in a hotel—a very nice hotel, true, but a semester is kind of a long time for that. Fortunately, J&RS discovered “the Goethe”: the dorm of the Goethe-Institut, where students come from all over the world to learn German. It’s just a few blocks from the Jazz & Rock Schulen.
If you associate Germany entirely with autobahns and wurst, Freiburg will surprise you.
Freiburg, Germany
It’s known as the most ecologically conscious city in Germany. There are tons, TONS of bikes. In neighboring villages, solar panels plaster the roofs. Today it’s raining, but people are still cycling—many protected by special ponchos that cover their handlebars and hands.
Freiburg’s Jazz & Rock Schulen has been a Berklee partner school for over a decade. The Berklee study-abroad program there, however, is only four semesters old.
It’s kind of ridiculous how well that header fits me this week: I’m going to Freiburg, Germany.
Sometimes people don’t associate Berklee with traditional college experiences such as studying abroad. But Berklee has partner schools all over the globe—institutions that share our attitude towards pop, jazz, and other forms of contemporary music—and our students can spend a semester at some of them getting a whole new perspective on their music. (Psst: we also have an ice hockey team.)
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