Summer in Cincinnati

This will be my last Post in this Blog about American culture because I'll leave Cincinnati on Sunday to spend one week in New York City. Today I'll reflect on my experiences in this program.
I think that I passed through all the different stages of culture shock during this program, and I got to know many things about the American culture and American English. Beginning with architecture and history, and ending with Health Care and Religion I learned many things about the United States. I knew that there are many differences between Germany and the U.S. but I thought they would be not as big. During my journey many years ago, as I was a child, it was a totally different view on the country because I had a look at the tourist spots only, so I didn't get to know so many things about the culture, except of the food and architecture. I got to know so many things about American culture, and so I think I got over culture shock. Talking English with native speakers increased my English definitively. It's a very good point that I wrote this blog in which I described my feelings, experiences, and conclusions, so I got better in writing, describing, and concluding in English. The program was arranged very well by my Professors. It was well balanced between nice free-time activities like canoeing, and interesting learning activities like going to the Freedom Center. I think it was a very good program to learn many things about the American culture. This program helped me to decide whether to study in the United States because I learned so many things about this culture, and because I got to know so many things about the U.S. in general, and my decision is that I do want to study here!
The thing that changed for me the most is my view on the relationship between the people and the government. In Germany the government helps and supports people very much. In the U.S. everybody has to take care for himself. I like this attitude more because we are all free people and we should care for ourselves. Although the government should help the people sometimes like with a general public health care system.
Finally I want to thank Debbie, Ruth, and Jody for their effort and work. It was just a great time here in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you for the nice summer!!!

My study abroad experience

During my studies in the last three weeks here at the University of Cincinnati, I learned many things about the American Culture, about important American topics, and last but not least, my English improves from day to day. Everyday we regarded another topic. First, we payed attention to the buildings and landscape, so we got to know the differences between rich neighborhoods and poor ones. The differences are bigger than in Germany. Although, I knew that there are bigger differences, it was astonishing to me. I learned many things about the American culture and history during my museum visits. Especially in the freedom center, I got to know many things I didn't know. I knew that there was slavery, and that Lincoln abolished Slavery, but I got to know that there were many people before the Civil War helping slaves to escape. This system to help people escaping was named Underground Railroad. I learned many things about the Civil War, too, and who played big roles in it. Many of the things we examined are totally different to Germany. I remember here the Culture of Food, for example. To examine, to analyze, and to think about the reasons for the differences helped to relieve the Culture Shock. Due to the fact that I got to know many things about the American Culture, I abolished all prejudices against it very fast. All in all, I think the program was designed to learn many things about the American Culture and History and this knowledge helped me very much to get through the stages of Culture Shock fast. The new knowledge supported me in understanding the American way of life, and the way of doing things very much, too. Due to the fact that I wrote about another theme everyday, we got to know many new special vocabulary, so my treasury of words increased, I think, and I can talk with an average American guy now about important themes easier.

In this intensive English program I learned things in totally different way. During my studies in Germany I'm always in a lecture with 100 to 500 people and someone ahead wants to impart knowledge to me by telling me the facts, and by explaining the difficulties, so the person in the front serves me the lore. Here in the U.S., I have to obtain the knowledge on my own. I examined, analyzed, and evaluated the different things I saw. This was a totally new feeling. On the one hand, it takes much more time, and often you overlook important facts. On the other hand, you get to know much more things, and you go into the theme deeper, while occupying oneself with this certain theme in this way. You can decide what is important for you, and what is less interesting, too. I think that it depends on the stuff you have to learn to decide which way of learning makes more sense. It's the perfect way of learning for this kind of language course because there are not so many students learning something, so the professor is able to care for everybody, and the students don't have to learn the main grammar, which should be explained. Whenever there were grammar themes to learn, the way of learning changed from the learning by doing and examining way to the explaining and understanding way. I like this mixture of those two alternatives because it unites all positive aspects, and it eliminates all negative ones.

The Culture of Music in America

On Tuesday we visited the world famous Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. It's a really nice building, and it's placed straight in front of the lake, so it's the perfect place for a museum. The exhibition starts in the basement of the building and during the exhibition you come to the top floor. The museum's theme is music, so there was much music and media stuff. First you see a movie about the roots of Rock and Roll Music, so Blues and things like that. After that there is a movie shown where you learn manz things about the history of the music. There are also many clips from artists, like Madonna, Jackson 5, Kurt Cobain, and many more. One big exhibit is about the artist's clothes. I don't like it very much because I don't care for their clothing I just want to listen to their music. Although, it's very funny to see what silly clothes they had. I think the nicest exhibit was a music player, where you were able to decide which music you to hear. They showed you which music was similar to this song, and so you got to know the roots of the music! All in all, it met my expectations for what a museum for music should look like because in a museum with a topic like music, there should be much media. People don't expect to read much when they want to get to know something about music. You have to hear the music because it's made for it, and not for reading!
I think that there were more exhibits about the beginning of the Rock and Roll music. The biggest part of the museum was about the music in the 60s and 70s, so about The Beatles, Elvis, ... There were less to no exhibits about music from the 90s. I think that they dicided this way because music of the 90s is not really far away and it's still played in the radio, so they don't want to remind people to that music in a museum. I think that they wanted to show what the roots of the Rock and Roll music are. The audience is told that the early artists were inspired by the afro-american music, so Blues and parts of Jazz. The artists were pioneers in the U.S. because black people weren't equal in the 50s. They helped them to become equal by making their music popular! Music is always one chance to show the problems of the society. The artists can remind people on bad situations, and so they can let people do something against it, and it changed definitively. Today, most people like songs by black artists and black people are equal to white people in the United States. That's another point why there are less exhibits from the 80s and 90s because the role of music changed in the years. I think that the designers of the museum wanted to show the role of Rock and Roll music in the American History, and it played a main role in the 60s where black people got equal. I think it plays a small role today, although many artists make songs in which they accuse the government, some countries or something else for doing bad things.
Many musicians are portrayed as heroes in society despite their negative and harmful behavior. I think that many people just like their music, and they don't care for their behavior. In the television and radio everybody gets to know that the musicians are rich, have lots of fun, travel around the world, and have sex the whole day, so everybody want to be like them. That's the thing why they are heroes for many people. They live the life that many people want to live, and if you see so many good things, you don't care for the bad things. The people don't want to see the bad things happening to their artists, and the bad things their artists do. They make a hero out of them, and a hero is allowed to do everything in their eyes.