Khaled from Egypt
Khaled from Egypt has been living and studying in Dresden for two years. He studies Computational Logic. Despite learning German at university, he was more comfortable with doing this interview in English since his degree programme is also taught in English.
- What do you like about Dresden?
I like so many things about the city. One of them is the size and the general atmosphere of Dresden. It is neither too big, nor too small and you have always something to do or something new to try. My favourite place in Dresden is the SLUB (library), because most of my friends are always there and it is close to the Mensa.
- What would you recommend that new students should try in Dresden?
Well, there are many things to try. One of them is hiking in the Saxon Switzerland, but I know that they will try it at some point, whether I recommend it or not. However, there are many other things. They should just try them, they should do something new every weekend and even after a year, there will be still new things to try.
- What did you find most difficult, when you arrived?
Nothing in particular. Before my arrival, there were people trying to frighten me, that it would be very difficult, especially with Pegida and so on. However, when I arrived there was just minor stuff, the kind that I would have had to deal with in any other city as well.
- What do you like about TU Dresden?
That it is a very open-minded university. Sometimes I think there are too many international students, like in my programme, there is just one German student. However, I don't like, that there are too many benefits, that are not announced or the information is too hard to find, like information about the scholarships for example. There are too many activities and I think, they are hard to organise.
- Living in Germany, what is the biggest difference to your home country?
There are a lot of things. For example, the university has a very international community, in Egypt, this is different, and all students there are Egyptians. The culture is very different also. I thought that Germans will be more punctual, but they still are more punctual as Egyptians. Nevertheless, the people in Egypt are more open, it is a lot easier to start a conversation with someone you don't know. It is the same about personal space; here the people put their bags next to them in the bus. It is as if you are not welcome to join them, even if they move the bag, it still doesn't feel like they are welcoming you to sit next to them. In Egypt, there is no free seat, if there is a free seat we sit on it. Even if we are going just one station, we will sit down, it's just what we do.
Another thing is that the people here are healthier, they really do something for their health, for example, they do some sports or are riding bikes.
- Do you do sports?
Yes, I tried many of them at the university sport centre. I tried table tennis, football, swimming, Ai ki do and gymnastics. Additionally, I'm learning German and Spanish at the University Language Center. It is possibly my last semester, so I just want to enjoy everything the university has to offer.
(This interview was conducted by Krista Aguilar in English in Wintersemester 2018/19.)