Student Feedback

Subpar Summer

Emily, 15, from United States – July 17, 2019, Summer Camp: Berlin Westend

Stay: 3 weeks, Course Start: 2019

Course

Teachers

Campus

After class activities

Support by GLS staff

Accomodation

The Good & the Bad - what did you like best? What least?

To the camp's credit, some of the classes were truly excellent, but please know that you will be circulating through one to three teachers over the course of any given week. Furthermore, the other children here are simply apathetic. Nobody is enthused to learn, that is. The academic landscape is desolate and unfulfilling. There were kids falling asleep in classes, etc., to further evidence this. As for the free time, we either had next to no time to ourselves or several-hour spans of time during which the only options for activities entailed making a twenty-minute trek to the local supermarket and playing ping pong. In spite of the aforementioned atrocities, one of the camp's most blatant shortcomings was the fact that the Wi-Fi didn't work in the rooms. As such, the camp induces estranged relations with one's parents - all ties back home were severed for me. To compound it, the food here is, frankly, uninspired. Most of the people whom I knew just defaulted to rations which they kept in their rooms to sustain themselves over the weeks.

Your recommendations for other students

Please be weary when choosing your camp and assess your fundamental objectives in learning German. This camp, I think, is not the best experience, especially if you are already B2. Personally, I walked into the camp with scarcely any background in the language and felt isolated, as the counselors would make me feel as if I were an idiot. Likewise, for people with an extensive education in German, almost everyone whom I knew who was enrolled in the "highest" class was terrifically bored and felt unsatisfied.