University of Applied Sciences, Fulda

General Information

The MA program, Intercultural Communication and European Studies, ICEUS, was established in Fulda, Germany, in the 1999/2000 winter term and funded and supported by the European Commission. The duration of such a program is three terms, and the students can successfully graduate after passing a final major exam at the end of the third term, completing a ten week internship, and writing a Master's thesis. The program was to accept 70% foreign students and 30% German natives, in order to guarantee and maintain its international, multicultural characteristic. As the courses were to be taught in both English and German, with a proportion of 70 to 30 percent, all the students had to prove their mastery of both languages. For English, holding a TOEFL with 550 or more was satisfactory, and for German, an intermediate level certificate sufficed. The studies focussed on three general branches: intercultural communication, international organisations and European studies.
The writer participated in the second group to take part in this MA program starting in the 2001/2002 winter term. This group was quite heterogeneous. There were students from four continents: Asia, Europe, Africa and America. Most of the foreign students lived in Fulda, but the writer lived in this city only for one term and had to commute to the city during the remaining two terms. This opportunity helped the writer to observe the problems from the point of view of an insider as well as an outsider.
Here I should add a short description of the city, Fulda. Fulda is a small city almost exactly in the middle of Germany. It has been traditionally very conservative, and like most small towns in Germany the inhabitants are mostly senior citizens. Before the the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Fulda was situated almost at the border of West and East Germany. Due to its distance, at that time, from the major cities and due to its size, the population consisted almost only of Germans. The phenomenon of having foreigners in the city is relatively new. This became all too clear to many of the black students who looked for accommodation outside the university campus.