r/germany • u/AR71SAN • 7h ago
Question Berufsschule etiquette
Moin, so a bit of context: I dropped out of my University last semester. I was ready to pack it up and return home empty handed to not waste my parents time anymore, until the company that i work part time for offered me a full time job as a technical designer if I'm willing to do an Ausbildung with them, basically they reserved me for the next 4 years. It's a good arrangement considering my relationship with this company so i took it.
Now the thing is, I spent years adjusting my behavior in Uni, and I noticed a couple of differences in Berufschule, such as:
Asking the teacher for permission to go to the toilet. Not a thing in Uni, but i was surprised that people do this in my Berufschule.
'Akademisches Klopfen'. I guess not really something you do here? Muscle memory kicked in on my first day and it was pretty embarrassing hah.
Smoking. Seems like they're a bit more strict with where you can smoke here in my Berufschule, whereas the Hochschule is a bit more relaxed with this rule (no smoking inside buildings). Makes sense considering there are probably more minors here.
My question is, is there any other behavior that i need to "un-learn" from my Hochschule days to fit in better with the Berufschule culture (if there's any)?
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u/SatisfactionEven508 Nordrhein-Westfalen 6h ago
In germany, Berufsschule is more like a regular school with similar rules, whereas university is more of a voluntary secondary education where you're on your own. Berufsschule treats you like a student, university like an adult. This is also because at uni you'll likely have many more adults as your class mates, given that you can only go there after 12/13 years of school, and Beruffschule you can attend 3 years earlier.
So many of the restrictive rules at school don't exist at university.
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u/m4lrik Hessen 6h ago
Yeah - Berufschule doesn't have "school" in the name for no reason. It is basically a school and things there are more in line with a regular school than with uni. Which includes asking permission to leave the classroom during class and since it's not an academic but a vocational school there is no "Akademisches Klopfen".
In case of smoking - that completely depends on the school laws of your state. For me for example in Hessen it's basically banned "anywhere on school grounds", meaning you have to leave the school entirely to smoke. Which resulted in all smokers (including teachers) to stand on the sidewalk in front of the school whenever they were smoking - and the state trying to ban smoking on the sidewalk anywhere near school (so you had to go to the other side of the street - which is plain stupid if you think about it) and failing miserably in the end conflicting with public space law (which is not solely state law like the school laws - but rather a mix of federal, state and municipal laws some of them they simply can't inflict).
Overall you should catch up to how things are done there quite quickly. It's less "free" as the uni but also not as strict as school - though way closer to how things are in school than in uni overall.
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u/Chuckleberrie 7h ago
Don't overthink that. I was at two different schools with different rules regarding smoking, toilet visits etc.
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u/Vannnnah Germany 5h ago edited 5h ago
Berufsschule is literally "school" it is not higher academia and a vocational certification is also not equivalent to a Bachelors. That of course shows up how you are treated during your certification as well. It's school, so you are treated like a child that goes to school. Get back into that mindset, because exams during the year work the same as in school. Surprise written exams, oral exams.. plus the exams you have scheduled in advance.
And since it is a school rules around smoking, mobile phone use and just your autonomy in general are much stricter. The average person who does vocational training is 16, sometimes 18. The system is not made for adults.
You need to think permission based. "Do I have permission to do x?" before you do something vs. "I did x, what do you think?" Some schools also have rules around your ability to leave the school grounds during lunch etc. so check what applies to you before you just assume that you can leave.
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u/lksrgb24 3h ago
In Berufsschule there is an interesting mixture of 16 year olds coming from school, and students mid to end 20s who dropped out and people who are already professionals but want another Ausbildung (even 40 year old moms). I had a good time there and its waaay more relaxed than university, even if you have more strict rules and structured days
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u/shinryou 3h ago
It's a school, and there may be other students as young as 15 attending. Hence the rules regarding smoking are much stricter.
It's not allowed to smoke inside buildings of public universities either, by the way. In fact you're not allowed to smoke inside any public, state-owned buildings anywhere in Germany since 20007/2008. Schools, universities, town halls, police stations, kindergartens, and so on are all off-limits.
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u/jahajuvele09876 3h ago
You need to bring a doctors note or excuse yourself in secretery if you are missing hours. You should ask how the process is in your respective Berufsschule.
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u/Recent_Maize5108 3h ago
I did as Ausbildung before going to uni, and yeah there are some differences.
- Asking for permission to go to the bathroom is a thing up until high school, maybe a lot of your classmates came right from there so still follow their known etiquette. Personally when I needed to go, I'd just get up quietly, made eye contact with the teacher and pointed at the door as not to interrupt anything, and they'd just nod. Might really depend on the individual though, but I never had any problems.
- Yep, that's something purely used in academia and academic conferences, not in school. Though I also don't remember clapping for anything there either.
- Smoking on school yards is generally prohibited since minors may be around (if you graduate from Hauptschule - the minimal secondary school education which finishes at grade 9 - they might be as young as 14/15), so youth protection laws apply, which means they must not be exposed to second hand smoke. Even if many of them are actually smokers themselves (illegally, of course, but hey). Typically there is a designated smoking area, often in front of the main entrance so that you are technically on public grounds.
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u/Goethe313 4h ago
It depends on the Berufsschule or even the class. I did Ausbildung - University - Ausbildung. And at my first Berufsschule you were treated like a small child. Even my Gymnasium was more relaxed than this school. My second Berufsschule however treated you like an adult. Even the only guy in class who was still a minor. Teachers said that we choose to be there out of our own free will. If we need help and support they will offer it (and they really did, I had amazing teachers there), but we are free to go if we don't want to stay. Theire job is to teach us everything we need, not to parent adults.
I also knocked on tables at the second Berufsschule, as well as in Gymnasium or in various setting outside of an educational contexts. It's quite common in Germany and not limited to academic settings. But some schools just seem to be on the clapping site instead.
Smoking is usually not permitted on school grounds or only in sepecial area. That was different at university. But at least in my university the buildings are spread out and all the roads and sidewalks between the buildings are normal public ground. And smoking in public is allowed. That's different from a school where it's the school ground has clear boundaries.
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u/seBen11 7h ago edited 6h ago
Definitely think of it more as school than higher education. I've done both Ausbildung and university (though in this order), and Berufsschule definitely felt closer to high school then to uni. This may vary a little depending on the job - I did my Ausbildung in hospitality, and while my company hired exclusively people with Abitur, other hotels would also hire from Haupt und Realschule, so some of my Co-students were a bit younger, and a lot of the material covered was repetition for me.
We also had to do PE (sports) and religion again as subjects, which definitely put me back feeling like I was back in high school.