RISEBA Riga, Latvia

Of course, a semester abroad isn't just about partying all night, traveling and drinking tea (even if most of it is), but also about everyday university life. Because as my mother likes to say: "It's a semester abroad, not a sabbatical!" So welcome to digital postcard no. 3 from Riga!

Although I'm just a handful of credit points left until my Bachelor's degree, I enrolled eagerly for courses with 30 CP, as all the courses on offer sounded very exciting. If you've made it this far but have already forgotten what I'm doing here: I'm studying for a Master's degree in Audiovisual Media at Riseba in Riga. My modules for this semester are Audio Culture, Visual Culture and Conceptual Thinking. In each module, I have between three and five lecturers who teach us their respective approaches, methods and programs in different media fields. The content ranges from 360° scanning and artificial intelligence to sound art production.

In general, I can say that the content of my degree course at Riseba is much more artistic than at home at THWS. In my experience, media management is more application-oriented and focuses heavily on established areas of work, whereas the degree program at Riseba is much more creative and has no concrete application in a specific profession. Of course, this also has its pros and cons, because while your own creativity is encouraged, projecting yourself onto the façade of a lighthouse with a scanner can sometimes be a bit overwhelming and wild. At this point, I'll leave it up to your own creativity to decide what it looked like at the end.

Another difference to Germany is that the courses here are very small. After being used to having around 60 fellow students in my Bachelor's degree, I was somewhat surprised to only have around 15 here, three of them Erasmus students. The philosophy here is very direct support from the lecturers, who also tend to take on a mentoring role. Communication between lecturers and students - which, by the way, takes place entirely in English, even for the Latvian students - is therefore relaxed and direct, which I really like, as this contributes to a relaxed learning atmosphere.

Another special feature of the degree program is that it is a partner program with another university on the west coast of Latvia, in Liepāja. We travel there about once a month to listen to lectures by guest lecturers, so far all of them German. Liepāja is a rather small port city with a population of around 60,000, which is a little bit like Schweinfurt with a large industrial port in the middle of the city.

So much for that, I'm now back to drinking coffee. I have to admit that I also have to prepare an assignment in the meantime, but with Kaffee it's all very relaxed.

Next time I'll continue with more leisure topics, I promise. Čau!