Walking down Pankow parks at dawn, you’ll see cats, dogs and squirrels playing and running and walking. Some of the dogs and cats you’ll see, also walk, run and play around the green grass next to W15 and K24 and T25; the student residence halls. They belong to some members of the BCB community. They
TagStudent Life
Even the Clean Ones are Unclean
It’s that time of summer: when everyone’s everywhere doing everything when days are longer, happinesses stronger when the green grass looks like it’s been told I-love-you. Six past six o’clock. Evening. The sun is effulgent, the wind mildly turbulent. At a field, around a neighborhood, in Berlin, on a sunny summer Sunday, three friends meet
A Language of Common Belonging
Berlin is foreign. Berlin is new. Berlin speaks to me in voices that I do not yet understand. It is loud, and alienating, and frustratingly unfamiliar. German signs and words are thrown at me left and right, clouding my surroundings and ensuring that I am merely an observer incapable of deciphering the simplest of phrases.
Bonfire Night
“Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot. We see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!” The first verse of this nursery rhyme rings in my ears as clearly as it did the day my mother taught it to me. And this song returns once a year, as she and
The Best (socially distanced) Study Spots in Berlin
In the midst of Mumbai’s scorching hot summer under a strict COVID-19 lockdown, I found myself longing for an M1 tram ride across Berlin. So much so, that I started watching eight-minute long YouTube videos of the M1 tram going from Pastor Niemöller Platz to Am Kupfergraben on loop. This longing also prompted me to
The First Years’ First Months at BCB
When you hear the word “college”, many things spring to mind: late nights, gallons of coffee, mountains of textbooks, new friends. For many teenagers, going to university represents a new chapter in their life, as for many it’s their first time living away from home. Countless film and TV scenes depict young adults heading off
From the Archives: Identity
“So writing, I think, is an interestingly perverse occupation. It is quite sick in the sense of normal human enjoyment of life, because the writer is always removed, the way an actor never is,” states author Edna O’Brien in an interview with The Paris Review. “An actor is with the audience, a writer is not
“The Road Goes Ever On”: An Interview with BCB Alum David Kretz
David Kretz is a BCB alum from the class of 2016 currently completing his Ph.D. in Germanic Studies and Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Early this May, he gave his time to write up insightful and constructive responses to my questions on his academic journey leading up to and since BCB, his current research, projects and opinions relating to a liberal (arts) education, words of advice for current and graduating students, and more.