I’ve seen a lot of people on social media that saw it and said the whole experience was amazing ( idk if they are just overreacting) wasn’t on my plans but I think I’m going to, is it better to watch it in Cosmos or tmv garden city ? Thanks in advance
Hi everyone !
I wanted to ask if anyone here has experience learning German completely from scratch, especially as Algerians since most of us are not really exposed to the language in daily life.
I’ve been wanting to learn German for a while, but finding a good school has been harder than I expected. Either the schedules don’t fit me or there are no A1 classes available right now. Since I’m starting completely from 0, I’d really love advice from people who already went through this.
Did anyone here learn German entirely on their own using YouTube and online resources? If yes, what exact steps did you follow at the beginning so you stayed consistent and didn’t waste time procrastinating?
Also, if you know any good schools, courses, or resources, please share them 🤍
And if anyone wants to start learning German with me from scratch, feel free to contact me :)
To be honest, I don’t even know how to start or explain this properly. I know this might sound absurd or immature to some people, but whatever.
I think I completely idealized university. I had a very different image of it compared to the reality I ended up facing. In my mind, college was supposed to be this amazing period of life, especially socially: student life, friend groups, outings, activities, memories… You grow up, become more mature, build meaningful connections, or at least that’s what I thought.
I guess part of it comes from the fact that I had a really lively social life in high school. I was friends with almost everyone, I went out all the time, I knew a lot of people, I had excellent grades, and overall everything felt balanced. Honestly, back then I genuinely felt like I was living the best years of my life.
My siblings kept telling me that university would be even better, that those would be “the best years of your life.” And around me, I saw exactly that. My siblings, family members, even my father talked about university with so much nostalgia and positivity. I also got the chance to hang out with university students before I even graduated high school, friends of my sister and people around her age, and it honestly made me dream about that phase of life.
And just to be clear, I know shows like Friends, HIMYM, Gossip Girl or Outer Banks are far from Algerian reality. I wasn’t expecting some unrealistic TV-show experience. What inspired me was simply seeing people who genuinely cared about each other: friends who got along well, helped one another, spent time together, studied together, and made each other’s lives easier and happier.
In a way, that image even motivated me during my final year of high school. I worked extremely hard and ended up graduating with an excellent bac result .
But because of circumstances unrelated to this topic, I couldn’t start university normally at the beginning of the year. ( for the curious ones : I transferred from one branch to another because of a career choice) and by the time I arrived, people had already started meeting each other and forming groups. During the rest of that year, I barely went to university, so I knew very few people. For a long time, I kept wondering if everything started because of that.
At the same time, I’m self-aware enough to admit that I didn’t make huge efforts to integrate either, mostly because I wasn’t present often. But over time, I slowly started feeling isolated and lonely.
My siblings told me that it was normal at first, but they still encouraged me to go to university more often so I could maximize my chances of finding “my people,” the group I’d study with, spend time with, and make memories with during the next few years.
Now I’m in my second year, and I still feel like I haven’t managed to find that.
Every time, one of the same scenarios happens:
either I meet someone, we exchange contacts in the moment, and then we never really talk again. And honestly, I don’t want to force conversations for no reason, especially when you barely know the person and they probably already have their own long-term friend group;
or we get along well at first, but then I start noticing weird behaviors: distance, being ignored, or even getting ghosted for no apparent reason;
or we start becoming friends, and then I notice unnecessary lies about grades, studying, attendance… things like “I didn’t study at all” when I literally saw them attending lectures and working. And trust me, this happens a lot in my field, where there’s already so much pressure, competition, and academic stress all the time;
or simply, the personalities and vibes just don’t match.
I know part of this might also come from the fact that I’m sensitive about friendships because my high school experience was genuinely beautiful. I’m still close to my high school friends today, even if life naturally separated us a bit. Some moved abroad, others chose completely different majors, while my own field is extremely demanding, stressful, and full of pressure, so we barely have time anymore.
What affects me sometimes is seeing that all of them eventually built new social circles at university. I even met some of their new friends. And sometimes I can’t help but wonder what went wrong for me.
My father thinks it’s mainly because I don’t go to university often enough to build connections. And honestly, he’s not completely wrong. But at the same time, almost every interaction I have ends up fitting into one of the situations I already described.
My siblings genuinely don’t understand why I never managed to integrate into a proper group either. They noticed that ever since I started university, I’ve barely had any social life besides occasionally seeing my high school friends.
I even talked about this with one of my university professors. After I explained everything, he told me that the environment here makes things even harder: a lot of toxicity, competition, pressure, and unhealthy comparison. He taught in other places before, so according to him, it’s not entirely “in my head.” And honestly, I think he’s partially right.
Over time, I’ve started realizing that maybe I idealized university too much. I grew up surrounded by people who only had positive experiences socially during those years, so subconsciously I thought it would naturally happen to me too. I was raised believing friendship was something valuable and almost sacred. That’s genuinely how I grew up and what I experienced.
Yes, TV shows probably influenced part of my imagination, but it wasn’t only that. I also saw real people around me living beautiful experiences and building meaningful friendships.
And I think what truly makes me sad isn’t even “not having friends.” It’s more the feeling of missing out on those memories, those small moments that become special because you experience them with the right people.
Because honestly, I think finding people who truly match your energy, make life lighter, and make difficult days more bearable is mostly luck. Right place, right moment.
And maybe, until now, I just haven’t had that chance yet.
Still, I can’t help but feel like it would be painful and honestly a little sad to spend the next several years in such a demanding and high-pressure field feeling mostly alone, only having casual university acquaintances instead of a real group of people to genuinely belong with.
Am I the only one who feels this way about uni, or did some of you experience something similar too? If you’re in university or already graduated, I’d really like to know how your social experience was honestly, and what you think about my situation.
And for anyone who wants to joke about this or be sarcastic, don’t worry. At this point, nothing really gets to me except this topic.