Die DSH-Prüfung (The DSH Exam)

After learning german for almost two years, today I finally had the chance to have my knowledge formally tested in a very important exam here in Germany. It is called DSH (Deutsche Sprachprüfung für den Hochschulzugang) and is taken by all the students or people who want to study in the german language. Since it's very popular, it's also considered a good indicator of one's knowledge for the professional life or when you go back to your home country. In order to finish my master course, provided I wanted to, I would need to score "average" in the test, also called a DSH-2 result. Since I have been prepared to take this exam during my german course in the university, I decided to try it out before starting the new job, so I could finally get some official certification in the language before I start my 9-to-5 routine.

The test was supposed to start today at 9:00 and go until 13:00. However, the amount of people taking it was so massive that we only started writing at 11:30 and the exam was over at 15:30. It was interesting to see so many foreigners together, from literally all over the world. I am used to being in international groups here, but this was by far the largest and most diverse I ever seen. The test took place in one of the Halls of the Mannheim University, that is also the city's castle.

The City Castle (Mannheimer Schloß)

The infrastructure was quite good and the exam itself was not harder than the ones we took for training during the classes in the university, just very long and stressful. But I expect good results. There is also a spoken exam to take place in two weeks, provided I pass this one. Then I will finally be formally over with my German learning. It took me two years to master the language. It seems like a good result and I am overall satisfied.

One thing that impressed me was the amount of hate messages on the walls of the toilet in the university building. In the Hochschule (where I study) we barely see any vandalism, let alone hate messages. Here, on the other hand, were lots of references to Nazis, offenses to Jews and Foreigners and other normal childish messages. Since I had never seen that here before, even being an university student for quite some time, this really surprised me. I hope the messages are all old and the times have changed for better... otherwise the students here in Germany have much more to learn than I previously thought.