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Spend a fall semester at the BCGS on the US calendar studying German language and taking BCGS subject courses. Discover contemporary German life and culture in a dynamic, multicultural city with a vibrant arts scene. Learn from Berlin's advanced knowledge of environmentalism and new technologies. And immerse yourself daily in the city’s remarkable history!

Fall Term Program (FTP) Overview

The BCGS FTP is based on the US fall calendar and is designed to offer US students on a semester system to study at the Freie Universität Berlin (FU) in the fall only. The US and German academic calendars for the fall and winter are generally not compatible. To compensate for this incongruity, the FTP subject courses are condensed from 16 into 8 weeks, which means they are taught double the regular hours per week to end in mid-December.

For the first six weeks, you take the signature intensive German Discourse and Culture (GDC) course to help you prepare academically and linguistically for your studies. The GDC course also introduces you to Berlin through weekly cultural activities that take you out and about in the city. Once you complete the GDC, the BCGS Fall Term Program offers you four subject courses in the field of German Studies, of which you choose three. They are taught on a B1 intermediate German language level and are also open to other international students at the FU for enrollment.

The FTP gives you the unique opportunity to study at Berlin's top university, Freie Universität Berlin. Although you cannot profit from the wide range of disciplines taught at the FU because of the conflicting German and US academic calendars, you gain insights of German history, culture, and society in a European perspective, providing knowledge relevant to an understanding of current affairs, culture and everyday life in contemporary Berlin (and Germany more generally), help you acquire academic and intercultural skills which are useful in a German-speaking academic environment and give you more confidence regarding your spoken and written (academic) German.

Please note: The BCGS offers three programs with several different calendar options for you to consider. If you can follow the German calendar, you will have a broader range of courses from which to choose, as you will be able to select from courses at the Freie Universität (FU) Berlin, a premier German university that offers courses which will not only pique your intellectual curiosity, but also help to meet your home school requirements. For information about all tracks, please see the 'BCGS Programs' drop-down on the BCGS Original Program Website: https://global.undergrad.columbia.edu/program/bcgs.

The Consortium

The Berlin Consortium for German Studies (BCGS) was established in 1995 and is proud to have run programs for over 30 years. The BCGS is based at the Freie Universität Berlin, where over 995 alumni of the different programs have studied. They not only deepened their language proficiency and academic knowledge, but also gained a variety of personal and cultural experiences, which they took back home with them. Some alumni even return to live, study, or work in Germany. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live and study while immersed in the dynamic city of Berlin. The BCGS also facilitates the annual exchange of FU students who spend the year studying at one of the member institutions. Members of the Consortium are:

  • University of Chicago
  • Columbia University and Barnard College
  • Cornell University
  • The Johns Hopkins University
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Princeton University
  • in association with the University of Notre Dame and Vassar College

The BCGS welcomes qualified students from other institutions to apply and regularly has visiting students as part of the program each term.

Eligibility & Application

  • Must be currently enrolled as an undergraduate student in good academic and disciplinary standing

  • Must have completed at least two years of college-level German or the equivalent.

  • Minimum 3.0 average language GPA

  • Minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA. Students must also maintain a 3.0 GPA during the semester before going abroad.

  • Students from universities and colleges outside of the BCGS Consortium are welcome to apply

HOW TO APPLY

Want to apply? Click the “Start Your Application” button at the top of this page. If the button doesn't appear above, the program is not yet accepting applications. You will be asked to set up a short profile, which will allow us to send you relevant information about your application. Once you’ve created a profile, you will see a checklist of items that you will need to submit. These generally include:

  • Application questionnaire(s)

  • Letter(s) of recommendation - language and academics

  • Official Transcript

  • Diagnostic Language Evaluation and meetings with director of language program at your school or with Columbia's language representative for visiting students

  • Home school approval/clearance: please check with your home university's study abroad office about applying for permission to attend the program and to transfer the credit

  • Application fee (if applicable)​

Calendar

The Fall Term Program allows you to enroll in classes at the Freie Universität Berlin, but because it follows the U.S. term calendar, you will be enrolled in a pre-set program of study. The program runs from September through mid-December.

Academics

Students enrolled in the BCGS Fall Term Program enroll in the following courses:

  • Intensive German Language course: German Discourse and Culture (GDC), 6 points

  • BCGS Visiting Professor Block Seminar, 4 points

  • BCGS/FU Block Seminars on German History and Culture (students select 2), 3 points each

The program provides significant support for students, including BCGS Staff, GDC Faculty and BCGS writing consultants (see full description under people), who are advanced students who provide extra support to help you adapt to the German University system.

​The University reserves the right to withdraw or modify the courses of instruction or to change the instructors as may become necessary.

German Discourse & Culture

German 3335 OC, 3405 OC, and 4335 OC: German Discourse and Culture, 6 points

Instructor: Dr. Detlef Otto, BCGS Language Director, and team

This six-week course is required of all incoming fall and spring students and is taken during the orientation period prior to the start of the German semester. Students are placed into one of the two or three levels depending on the semester and their language abilities.

This course combines extensive language study with an introduction to the discourse of German academic culture, both spoken and written. The goal of the course is to prepare students for successful study in the German university system. Special attention is paid to practical vocabulary for both academic and daily living applications.

At the conclusion of this course, all students will take a language placement exam. Satisfactory completion of this course as well as a satisfactory mark on the language exam are required as a condition of enrollment in courses taught in German at the FU.

CURRICULUM:

Each week, the course focuses on a specific topic relevant to life and study in Berlin. The professors use current newspapers, blogs, podcasts, and relevant videos to support the study of the topics. Past topics have included:

  • Berlin: its city districts, neighborhoods, and inhabitants; current urban debates (including gentrification and how to deal with it)

  • German History from 1918-1990; History discovered in literary texts from Haffner to Sallmann

  • Germany’s political institutions

  • Germany’s Education System

  • Germany’s Economy with topics such as Brexit, trade wars, and free and fair trade

  • Socio-political issues such as migration, the New Right, Jews in Germany today

  • The Humanities: Art & Theater in Berlin

  • Exploring German Cultural Heritage outside of Berlin: Dessau, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Neuruppin, Schloss Branitz bei Cottbus

ACTIVITIES:

Each week, a cultural activity in and around the city of Berlin is organized in association with the course and the week's topic(s) of study. Examples of past activities include:

  • Guided tours through Berlin districts such as Kreuzberg, Mitte, and Prenzlauer Berg and museums such as Berlinische Galerie, Gemäldegalerie, Hamburger Bahnhof, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Jüdisches Museum, Martin Gropius Bau, Alte Nationalgalerie, Altes Museum, Bode Museum, and Neue Nationalgalerie

  • Performances at Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Komische Oper as well as at theatres and off-theatres such as Maxim-Gorki-Theater, Berliner Ensemble, Volksbühne Berlin, and Heimathafen Neukölln

  • Visits at Berlin and federal institutions such as Deutscher Bundestag, including a political discussion with a politician or administrative representative, attendance at a plenary session, and a tour of the dome and Bundeskanzleramt

  • Day trips to Dessau (Bauhaus), Neuruppin (Fontane, Schinkel), Potsdam (castles such as Sanssouci and Cecilienhof), and Lutherstadt Wittenberg

ADDITIONAL GERMAN LANGUAGE COURSE:

Students who do not receive satisfactory marks (B2.2 CEFR) on the language exam at the end of the GDC course are required to take an additional German language course at the FU. Check with your home institution about whether you will receive credit for this course. Columbia and visiting students have this course listed on their transcript, but they do not receive credit for it.

BCGS Visiting professor BLOCK SEMINAR

4 points

Fall 2026

Instructor: Professor Paul Fleming from Cornell University

Berliner Topografien: Miniaturen, Romane, Filme

This course explores the city Berlin as depicted in urban miniatures, film, literature, and the feuilleton from its advent as a modern metropolis around 1900 up to the present. It is particularly interested in the use of identifiable locations – streets, plazas, buildings – as ways of both orienting the reader and viewer and offering them insight into Berlin at different moments in time. Places are explicitly depicted as sites, receptables of history. Students will be exposed to a wide array of writing and visual styles and encouraged to explore their own, as they ‘work their way through Berlin’ both on the page and as visitors living in the city. Students will be encouraged to visit the sites and consider (and describe) how much has changed over the past 125 years. Two central foci will be the Weimar Republik, especially the role of class and gender as the intersect with work, and the divided city, viewed both seriously and with some humor. The course is bookended by an opening series of literary ‘snapshots’ depicting Berlin in the early 20th century and the early 21st century.

Fall 2025

Instructor: Professor Katrin Pahl from Johns Hopkins University

Flucht und Migration: Literarische Erkundungen

Germany’s recent history is significantly shaped by migration in different forms, such as flight from Nazi Germany, expulsion from territories lost in WWII, escape from East Germany to the West, labor migration to the FRG (Gastarbeiter) and GDR (Vertragsarbeiter), relocations in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, and streams of war refugees (most prominently from ex-Yugoslavia in the 1990s, from Syria around 2015, and recently from Ukraine). In this course, we will study how contemporary German literature reflects the experiences of refugees and immigrants. Relevant concepts, such as identity, origin (Herkunft), homeland (Heimat), welcome, integration, and return will be interrogated in our readings and discussions. We will consider the traumatic dimension of the migrant experience (stemming from the reasons for leaving, the run itself, who or what is left behind, the new context with its power dynamics, etc.) and how it diverges across genders and generations. Family dynamics and queer figures will be focal points for the seminar’s approach. Among the plethora of recent literature exploring the topic, Fatma Aydemir’s novel Dschinns, Ronya Othmann’s novel Die Sommer, Sasha Marianna Salzmann’s play Danja, mein dementes Jahrhundert and Yael Ronen’s play Replay might serve as our main examples. In addition, we will familiarize ourselves with the “postmigrant theater” approach, pioneered by Shermin Langhoff, and the work of the “Exilensemble” at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin. We will draw connections with and possibly visit relevant sites, institutions and persons in Berlin.

FREIE Universität BLOCK SEMINARS

3 points

FU block seminars are intensive courses in the field of German Studies, specifically organized for FU international students who are non-native speakers. They are taught in German on a B1 level from mid-October to mid-December. Please note that the topics will only be finalized a couple of months before the lecture period. You will see below course topics from previous semesters.

* Other electives taught in German are not available to you because they follow the German calendar which ends in mid-February.

Fall 2026

  • The Germany Political Landscape (taught by Dr. Annika Becker)

    • The seminar aims to provide participants with a solid understanding of Germany’s political system. We will examine the constitutional bodies, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, discuss the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Government, the Federal Chancellor, and the Federal President, explore Germany’s parliamentary system and intelligence services, and address issues related to political communication and decision-making. Participants will be able to critically analyze political institutions and proceedings, understand how they function, and identify the challenges and opportunities that political actors and institutions have faced throughout the history of the Federal Republic. The course also includes field trips, such as to Berlin's government district.

  • Building and Living in Berlin (taught by Dr. Muriel Ernestus)

    • The seminar provides an overview of the development of residential buildings in Berlin from the German Empire to the present day. We will deal with urban planning debates as well as architectural features of exemplary residential quarters. In addition to tenement blocks, we will take a closer look at residential quarters of Berlin Modernism, compare GDR housing estates between neoclassicism and prefabricated housing with large housing estates in West Berlin and look at proposed solutions to the housing crisis of the present. Over the course of the semester, we will go on several excursions.

  • Migration and Religion (taught by Dr. Hildegard Piegeler)

    • During the major waves of migration to Germany that began in the mid-1950s—in which workers from other European countries and, later, from Turkey were specifically recruited—little attention was paid for a long time to the migrants’ living conditions or the “religions they brought with them.” At the latest, since the so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015, the situation—and in particular society’s perception of migration—has changed drastically. Hardly anything continues to stir and polarize German society more than the topic of “migration and refugee policy,” which has become even more contentious due to the challenges posed by current armed conflicts. The seminar will address this often polemically conducted debate with a specific focus: It will explore the role and significance of religions and their adherents in this debate. Furthermore, it will examine the religious-political challenges faced by a modern state based on the separation of church and state and the right to religious freedom.

​The University reserves the right to withdraw or modify the courses of instruction or to change the instructors as may become necessary.

Fall 2025

  • Germany: An Introduction to Politics, Society and Culture

  • Building and Living in Berlin

  • Berlin and Its Theaters

Fall 2024

  • Germany: An Introduction to Politics, Society and Culture

  • Migration and Religion

  • The Jewish Berlin (16th-21st Ct.)Grades and Transcripts

Grading & Credit Policy

Click here for the Columbia Semester/Academic Year program grading policies.

For credit amounts for each course type, please click PDF iconhere.

Transcripts

All courses taken on the program are converted to an American grading scale and transmitted to students as follows:

Columbia students: Grades appear on SSOL and your transcript as semester grades from courses taken at Columbia. For more information, please see the section on Academic Credit in Steps to Study Abroad.

Barnard students: Grades appear on eBear and your transcript as any semester grades from courses taken at Barnard. For more information, please see the section on Credit and Transcripts for Barnard Students on our Barnard student pages.

Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, University of Chicago, University of Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, and Vassar students: Grades are entered into Columbia's SSOL system and you will need to request a transcript to obtain your final grades. Please see the section on Credit and Transcripts for Non-Columbia Students on the Non-Columbia student pages

Non-Columbia students: Grades are entered into Columbia's system and you will need to request a transcript to obtain your final grades. Please see the section on Credit and Transcripts for Non-Columbia Students on the Non-Columbia student pages.

If you would like to request additional copies of your Columbia transcript, please see the Columbia Registrar’s instructions: https://registrar.columbia.edu/content/transcripts. There are no fees for additional transcripts.

IMPORTANT: Please note that the timing of receiving transcripts varies from the U.S. academic calendar. Given the different U.S. and German academic calendars, grades are usually not received from your FU professor(s) until late April if you studied in Berlin for the fall semester and late October for the spring semester. If you need to have grades posted earlier, please talk to your university professors about submitting grades to the BCGS office as early as possible.

Life in Berlin

Curious about the student experience? Be sure to read Student Stories on our website and check out additional student testimonials on GoOverseas.

HOUSING

The BCGS recommends the following options for participants. Please click on the option websites for updated pricing.

Students who wish to live in a pre-arranged apartment or dorms must commit to this option, prior to the start of the program by following the FU dorm application deadlines, which is the beginning June for fall students.

To learn more about the housing details and the application process, visit the FU website.

Dorms

Dormitory living (which includes the Studentendorf Schlachtensee/Student Village and the Studierendenwerk Berlin) is also available to BCGS students. Please see details below:

Independent Housing

Independent Housing is offered on a petition only basis. Accepted students must reach out to their adviser to complete the BCGS Independent Housing Petition in advance of the pre-departure process.

By arranging your own housing, you will be expected to:

  • Confirm that your home school policy allows you to opt out of program-recommended housing

  • Find safe housing in a suitable neighborhood for the correct duration of the program and send documentation to program staff prior to the FU Accommodation application deadline

  • Negotiate and follow the terms of use and payment

  • Independently resolve any disputes or issues related to your housing situation

  • Provide the full contact information of your residence to the program staff

MEALS

Berlin is a great food destination. The high ethnic diversity of its citizens contributes to the vast variety of its restaurants and food offerings from all over the world. There is a strong movement towards organic and regional produce as well as vegetarian and vegan cuisine. Nevertheless, the infamous Döner and Currywurst still have their place among the new trends. You will have easy access to your favorite food at fresh food markets, supermarkets, street vendors and on campus. At the Freie Universität, there are several cafés, cafeterias, and a dining hall which is mostly vegetarian. In addition, there are a few private restaurants and cafés around campus. However, please be aware that there are no meals included and there is no meal plan for BCGS students.

ACTIVITIES

The program offers many activities that will help students engage with the cultural life of Berlin.

Volunteering

Instead of an internship, students in recent years have participated in volunteer work throughout Berlin. This is much easier for Spring semester students to participate in than in an internship. Opportunities have ranged from teaching to social, cultural and ecological projects. Students interested in socio-political issues have found ways through volunteer work to contribute to the German “welcome culture,” helping refugees integrate in German society.

The “Freiwilligenagenturen,” non-profit agencies, help to coordinate volunteer work in the Berlin districts. Examples of volunteer projects include organizing grass root activities, mentoring kids with learning disabilities, helping LGBTQ* organizations, integrating refugees, and supporting homeless people.

Trips & Excursions

The program organizes a series of excursions and cultural activities in and around Berlin, which are integrated into the academic program. These trips are intended to provide an insider's look into Berlin and Germany, and they often provide access to people and places students might not otherwise have.

Cultural Program and Field Trips

During the first six weeks of the program, a trip is organized on a weekly basis. Examples of past activities include:

  • Guided tours through Berlin districts such as Kreuzberg, Mitte, and Prenzlauer Berg and museums such as Berlinische Galerie, Gemäldegalerie, Hamburger Bahnhof, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Jüdisches Museum, Martin Gropius Bau, Alte Nationalgalerie, Altes Museum, Bode Museum, and Neue Nationalgalerie

  • Performances at Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Komische Oper as well as at theatres and off-theatres such as Maxim-Gorki-Theater, Berliner Ensemble, Volksbühne Berlin, and Heimathafen Neukölln

  • Visits at Berlin and federal institutions such as Deutscher Bundestag, including a political discussion with a politician or administrative representative, attendance at a plenary session, and a tour of the dome and Bundeskanzleramt

  • Day trips to Dessau (Bauhaus), Neuruppin (Fontane, Schinkel), Potsdam (castles such as Sanssouci and Cecilienhof), and Lutherstadt Wittenberg

Study Trips

A one-day trip to another city in Germany will be organized for program participants. Examples from the past have been Hamburg, Leipzig, and Dresden.

Daily Living and Schedule

Your daily schedule will be different from what you are used to on your home campus. During the first six weeks of the program, the German Discourse and Culture course meets 4 days a week from 9 am until 12:50 pm. Additionally, Wednesdays are usually reserved for cultural excursions.

During the rest of the fall term, you will enroll in three of the four offered block seminars which generally meet en bloc on different days of the week for four teaching units (180 minutes) with a break in between. Over the course of the semester, each block seminar takes you out of the classroom to explore relevant sites and institutions.

Part of the academic day will be spent commuting to the FU campus. Like most European universities, it is not a residential university and its student body commutes to the campus from all over greater Berlin. You will likely commute 30-50 minutes to class.


Fitness and Wellness

There are countless possibilities to enjoy your free time in Berlin. The Freie Universität offers a vast variety of sports programs, health sports, dancing and more. To explore these options visit this site. Furthermore, there are some 2,500 sports clubs in Berlin offering more intensive training in virtually any field. There are also continuing education centers, the so-called “Volkshochschulen,” and music schools to learn something new or improve your skills in languages, dance, Yoga, fine arts, drums, politics and cultures, cooking, etc. While keeping you mentally fit, all of these opportunities also open up German society, allowing you to get more immersed during your time in Berlin. The possibilities to stay fit both mentally and physically while you are in Berlin are endless!

LOCATION

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city and the largest city in Germany. The city has become known for its art scene and entrepreneurial environment. Berlin is home to world renowned Universities, museums, orchestras, and entertainment venues. This city, rich in history and historical monuments, will provide endless cultural outlets for city dwellers and visitors alike.

Since the city's reunification in 1990, Berlin has been characterized by change and invention. The dichotomy between old and new provides a constant reminder of Berlin's complex history. After the fall of the Berlin wall, Berlin emerged as the cultural and economic capital city of Germany, alive with a sense of transformation and progress. A vibrant nightlife, exciting art scene, and myriad cultural venues contribute to Berlin's status as one of Europe's most cosmopolitan and sophisticated urban centers.

Visits to museums, galleries, cultural and political institutions, and historic sites and landmarks all contribute to providing a deeper understanding of Germany's past and its current role in the European Union and global affairs.

Freie Universität

The BCGS facility is located on the main FU campus in Dahlem and functions as a home base for program participants. The program center houses administrative offices for the BCGS staff; classroom space where students convene for the BCGS courses; and limited computer facilities where students may check e-mail and W-LAN access for their own laptops via “Eduroam”.

Please let the Freie Universität Berlin introduce herself to you via this: Campus Tour and her Founding History:

“Freie Universität Berlin was founded in 1948 by professors and students as a reaction to political oppression against students and faculty at the main university in Berlin, which happened to be located in the Soviet sector of the occupied city. The idea of founding a free university received widespread international support and financial backing, ultimately paving the way for Freie Universität to become a university of international standing.”

People

Staff

Resident Director

Responsible for program operations, development and oversight of the academic program, student affairs, and administrative and financial management.

Carmen Müller has been the Resident Director since the program's inception. A native of the Southwest of Germany, she moved to Berlin in 1988 and experienced the fall of the wall and its aftermath first-hand. As a master’s degree student, she spent an academic year as a Fulbright fellow at the New School for Social Research in New York City. Dr. Müller received her Doctor of Philosophy from the John F. Kennedy Institute at the Freie Universität Berlin and is a historian specializing in 19th- and 20th- century European and German history, German-American relations, and methodology. Dr. Müller also teaches a course during the spring semester and loves the vibrant life of Berlin.

Assistant Administrative Director

Assists the Resident Director in program operations and student affairs.

Nikolaj Blocksdorf has been working with BCGS since 2012. As a genuine Berliner, he offers the students unique insights into the rich diversity of his native city. Mr. Blocksdorf is also familiar with the students’ perspective of educational exchange: He stayed with a host family during his high school year in Orange County, California. Later, when studying North American Studies and Islamic Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, he left his comfort zone to live for seven months in Damascus, Syria.

Writing Consultants

The BCGS employs writing consultants who are graduate students and an integral part of the program’s support structure. They are available to assist students during the German Discourse and Culture course and throughout the regular university semester until the program ends. We strongly recommend that each student works on a weekly basis with their writing consultant to ensure a successful completion of their course work. Furthermore, the writing consultants provide invaluable insights into Berlin’s culture and everyday student life.

FACULTY

BCGS Visiting Professor

On an annually rotating basis each academic year, the BCGS member institutions usually send a faculty member to Berlin as the BCGS Visiting Professor to oversee the academic program and teach a course on a selected topic in German Studies.

Fall 2026 Visiting Professor

Paul Fleming is the L. Sanford and Jo Mills Reis Professor of Humanities and the former Taylor Family Director of Cornell’s Society for the Humanities (2017-2024). As Professor of Comparative Literature and German Studies, he has published the monographs Exemplarity and Mediocrity: The Art of the Average from Bourgeois Tragedy to Realism (2009) and The Pleasures of Abandonment: Jean Paul and the Life of Humor (2006) along with edited volumes on Hans Blumenberg, Siegfried Kracauer, the scholars around Stefan George, and Ulrich Peltzer. He has translated Peter Szondi’s Essay on the Tragic (2002) and Hans Blumenberg’s Care Crosses the River (2010) as well as co-translated Blumenberg’s The Saint Matthew Passion (2022). He edits the book series “Signale” in Cormell University Press, co-edits the journal New German Critique, and serves on the boards of diacritics and the book series Paradigms: Literature & the Human Sciences in de Gruyter Press. Fleming has published widely on close reading, distant reading, gestures in text, precarity and the new life on the road, dilettantism, notions of humor, Critical Theory, and much more.

Previous BCGS Visiting Professors

  • Fall 2025: Katrin Pahl, Johns Hopkins University
  • Fall 2024: Javier Samper Vendrell, University of Pennsylvania
  • 2019-20: Volker Schröder, Princeton University
  • 2018-19: Aden Kumler, University of Chicago
  • 2017-18: Ian Fleishman, University of Pennsylvania
  • 2016-17: Andrea Krauss, Johns Hopkins University
  • 2015-16: Patrizia McBride, Cornell University
  • 2014-15: Mark Anderson, Columbia University
  • 2013-14: Marc Domingo Gygax, Princeton University
  • 2012-13: Jonathan Lyon, University of Chicago
  • 2011-12: Simon Richter, University of Pennsylvania
  • 2010-11: Arthur Groos, Cornell University
  • 2009-10: Katrin Pahl, The Johns Hopkins University
  • 2008-09: Warren Breckman, University of Pennsylvania
  • 2007-08: Volker Berghahn, Columbia University
  • 2006-07: Tom Leisten, Princeton University
  • 2005-06: David Levin, University of Chicago
  • 2004-05: Cordula Grewe, Columbia University
  • 2003-04: Tom Safley, University of Pennsylvania
  • 2002-03: Andreas Huyssen, Columbia University
  • 2001-02: Rochelle Tobias, Johns Hopkins University
  • 2000-01: Tom Levin, Princeton University
  • 1999-2000: Andreas Gailus, University of Chicago
  • 1998-99: Karl Otto, University of Pennsylvania
  • 1997-98: Cyrus Hamlin, Yale University
  • 1996-97: David Wellbery, Johns Hopkins University
  • Spring 1996: Mark Anderson, Columbia University

Director of the Language Program

Detlef Otto studied Philosophy, Comparative Literature, and Social Sciences in Darmstadt and at the Freie Universität Berlin; he holds a Ph. D. in Philosophy. He has taught German as a Foreign Language since 1988. After having worked as a lecturer of the DAAD at the Università degli studi di Bologna / Italy from 1994-97, he went through an intensive training course at the Goethe Institut Berlin for language instructors. Since 1999, he is teaching intensive courses at the Goethe Institute. Since 2003, he has also worked in the field of teacher training. In the Fall 1999, he started his work as Language Director for the BCGS.

Financial Considerations

Many students use a combination of federal student aid and home school grants to fund their undergraduate studies. Many, if not most, of these funds are applicable to studying abroad for a semester or academic year. The costs of studying abroad during the semester or academic year are frequently comparable to those of staying on campus.

All students should work with their home school financial aid office to determine what aid is available for studying abroad.

Please see below for the cost breakdowns for detailed information on all program-related expenses:

Fall Term Program​ 2027*:

*Please note the costs below are for Fall 2026, costs for Fall 2027 will be posted when available.

**Please Note: Tuition and fees are subject to Board of Trustee approval and may change**

Financing Your Studies in Berlin

Students may apply for the following scholarship applicable to this program:

DAAD

For more information and resources on financing your time abroad, please see the pages below:

Withdrawal and Refund Policy

If you decide to withdraw from the program after confirming your participation, please be aware of the financial consequences and the office policies by reviewing the Withdrawal and Refund Policy.

Find Out More

Speak to an Adviser: Want to learn more? Make an appointment to chat with the adviser for this program! You can also email them with any questions, or to arrange a meeting if you are unable to make the listed times.

Applying: Make sure to review the dates and deadlines section at the bottom of the page.

Resources: View our Steps to Study Abroad page to see advice on Where to Begin, how to Prepare to Go, and what you need to know when Returning from Abroad. We will share many resources with you throughout the application and pre-departure process for preparing to study abroad.

We recommend reviewing the following before you apply:

Once accepted, make sure to review the Prepare to Go page for more resources and information about preparing for your experience abroad.