Jutta Schmiers-Heller

Jutta is such a delightful and kind professor! She really cares about her students and trust that your effort in this class will be rewarded. Ich habe viel Deutsch delernt!

Content: Introduction to Berlin, but then quickly moved on to more about German culture. Wrote a few essays, did some pre-professional work such as creating a cover letter (anschreiben), CV (lebenslauf), and overall application process for an internship (praktikum). Super interesting and fun. Jutta is amazing --- she is so funny and caring and overall a great professor. She is lenient, but also makes sure that you learn all the content. Be engaged and this will be your favorite German class at Columbia.

I absolutely adore Jutta. She is extremely understanding and helpful and creates an environment in her class that made me actively want to attend. As far as grading goes, I never felt as if I received an unfair grade on any assignment or test. Her office hours are flexible- if I couldn't make one she would let me set up a one on one. She replies quickly to emails and is very responsive when it comes to any issues you may be having. I have already signed up for her E2 section because I enjoyed this one so much. Also nice that there's no friday classes.

Jutta is the love of my life. As a foreign language learner, who has had his fair share of foreign language teachers, she is by far the best I have ever had. She is not only incredibly knowledgeable about German, but is amazing at teaching you it. She does not correct every mistake you make in order to foster a desire to speak, while making sure you are remembering key grammar points. She has convinced me to seek a concentration in German. She prepares you very well for all of the tests and is a generous grader. The regular and constant structure of the course is not only very German, but very nice because you always know what happens.

Let me start off with the largest downside to her class: although the material and basis is provided for you to learn a lot, if you're not self-motivated, you probably won't learn as much as you'd learn in a more demanding and stressful environment. That said, it is precisely Jutta's approach that makes her so worthwhile. I could come into class having the worst of days, and with a scowl tattooed on my face. And goddamn it, her humor might be more 3 Stooges than Dennis Miller, but she almost invariably lightens the mood of the class and accomplishes the primarily critical task of making class enjoyable. Some people in the class complained she didn't teach enough grammar and there wasn't enough formal teaching. That is true, but I believe there is a larger intent to structure the class based around working a lot with other students and practicing your German instead of being lectured about it. She isn't loosey-goosey about deadlines and punctuality. She will take off points if you willy-nilly choose to be late or not hand in assignments. But if you approach her beforehand, she's very understanding and knows that there is more going on in your life than German class. She borders the line between sufficiently authoritative instructor and compassionate, light-hearted human being quite well. She's quite accessible both in person and electronically.

OMG! A professor with a sense of humor! How few and far between. Jutta is very warm and lively and quite funny. It was a joy to be in her German class. I'll concede that some of the subjects discussed in the first half of the semester were a bit, um, dull, but the second half took off, and I enjoyed myself. It truly was an excellent class, and Jutta was a very fun, amazing teacher. I definitely recommend it.

Jutta is excellent. Warm, affable, and understanding. She is a native speaker, so her German is flawless (unlike some TA's). You won't find better in the department.

Throughout this course my confidence speaking in German has greatly improved, my understanding of German grammar has also improved, and I learned a lot about different aspects of German culture.

I learned a lot of new vocabulary, worked on my spoken German and greatly increased my listening capabilities.

This course is such an immersive and genuinely fun way to build on the Elementary German skills we'd covered so far. I enjoyed the application of the basic German into movies, films, historical contexts — the textbook is interesting and the German department has clearly invested a lot of time into ensuring no lessons are boring/ just sit-down lectures. Engaging.