The following is another email sent to us by a reader and BTU Student:
Frau Shankin
- Speaks almost no English and is very challenging to communicate with.
- Often fails to solve any of the issues I go to her with.
- Fails to enter course marks, in fact, I had to go to her with the marks I had collected from my professors. The was a huge waste of time for everyone involved.
- Has lost some of my important documents.
- Has very inconvenient office hours (she also seems to be on holiday or sick very often).
- Often has a very unfriendly and unprofessional attitude.
PROFESSORS
- Nearly all of my professors fail to give me any feedback on my exams, essays, or presentations. I have no idea why I received the marks I ended up with in the majority of my classes.
- Many professors seemed to grade based on how well that like a student, not based on how well the student performs in the class.
- At least half of the professors speak English so poorly that even native English speakers have difficulty understanding the concepts being explained.
- The majority of professors seem to have little regard for students schedules as they regularly start classes 15 to 30 minutes late, and sometimes even allow the class to run 15 to 30 minutes later than the class is supposed to go.
- All of the professors I took classes from were exceedingly difficult to contact outside of class and it was often nearly impossible to meet during their office hours (if they even bothered to have office hours).
- The general level of communication and teaching ability among WHS teaching staff is far below the acceptable standards found in the other countries where I have attended university.
- Prof. Michael Schmidt [allegedly] repeatedly flirted with female students to the point were they felt very uncomfortable.
- Prof. Schuster is immature and very often fails to take responsibility for his mistakes. I also witnessed him acting very unprofessional during an excursion, treating students and the bus driver with a huge amount of disrespect. I found his behaviour shocking and I feel that he uses his position at the head of the examination board in a corrupt and dishonest way.
General Impression of the WHS program and the BTU:
- No one at the BTU can ever reply to emails within a reasonable timeframe, if they even bother to reply at all. By “reasonable timeframe,” I mean two weeks.
- The staff at the International office are amazingly incompetent, and sometimes even unfriendly. It is very difficult to get any sort of information from them, when they do actually bother to pick up the phone.
- The BTU IMKZ is very very difficult to use for students who know little of no German. There are few resources available in English, and it is almost always impossible to find a single librarian who speaks English. The library is also rather poorly outfitted with books relating to WHS.
- The WHS program is organized very poorly and the majority of the staff seem not to care at all about solving reoccurring problems. This is also maybe the reason we seem to get a new coordinator every one to two years.
- It is very difficult to find information or get any type of direction from WHS staff. The thesis process is very confusing and few WHS staff actually have any information about how this process works.
- I have the feeling that comments and feedback are not taken seriously and that student’s opinions and concerns do not matter at all.
- The academic standards for the WHS are very low, especially compared to graduate programs in other Western countries. Nearly all of the classes are based on student presentations, meaning the professors rarely teach (especially if they have a student aid, like in Cultural Landscapes). The level of academic research and expectations is pretty sad even for an Undergraduate program in a lot of countries.
- I would not recommend this program to anyone interested in WH or in finding employment in the field of WH. In fact, I have communicated my thoughts on the WHS program to several potential WHS students, warning them about the problems I have encountered at the BTU and in the WHS program. A
- All in all, my opinion of the WHS program is this: anyone who is actually serious about WHS should not waste their time with this program. I am very frustrated that I choose to study at the BTU and I feel that the 3 students who quit during the first semester made a very intelligent choice.
