Fachhochschule Wiesbaden

Living in London is not the cheapest thing on earth, is it?However Wiesbaden is not all that cheap according to german standards either!!

Telephone - no contract phone. International calls are cheap to England. Food is cheaper but I eat more. Accomodation is about the same price as South London. Nightlife is cheaper but we go out more as there is nothing else to do! Travelling home is obviously more.

No

Very good programme for international students

The FH Wiesbaden has an excellent design department, but it is not as good as the faculty thinks it is. The Communications Design portion of the department has more students and more resources than the Interior Architecture half. The photography courses are good. Some of the "Projekt" courses are not. The drawing teachers are not so great at teaching, even though they are successful artists.

Design is taught very differently in Germany than in the U.S. In America, we had several short projects throughout the semester to do. We worked very quickly, and all the time! In Germany, and maybe Europe as a whole, students tend to have one semester-long project for each class that they take, and they only really do any work for the last month or so of a class. German design students do not "really" take any other classes besides design-related ones (e.g., Art History courses in which one studies, has exams, and writes papers, or any sort of course in which you write anything!).

The two student dorms in Wiesbaden are nice, but they have their drawbacks. One is very close to the school, but has a sanitized, hospital-institution feel to it. The other has a friendlier atmosphere, but is located in the suburbs, quite a bus ride away! Apartments are available all over the city, and living with several actual German students, like I did, made socializing easy, especially when I first moved in.