It must seem weird, me talking about adding and dropping classes at this late date in the semester. So I'll take a moment to explain the alchemy that is the course scheduling at Bucerius...
The international program offers 12 courses for the session (which I'll call the "semester," since it reasonably tracks to my regular BUSL semester). They are all worth 2 ABA credits and meet something like 12 times each, for 2 hours (well, a bit less with a break in the middle). They are scheduled thusly: 4 run for the first half of the semester, 4 for the second half, and 4 run the whole time. In theory this means that the half-semester ones meet twice a week, while the others meet once.
In reality this isn't quite what happens. Due to the scheduling of professors, facilities, and miscellaneous holidays and such that force the schedule to be rearranged, we can have some classes three times a week and some might go 10 days before meeting again. Also, although some classes tend to track to the same dates and times every week, some are completely irregular.
(For example, can you figure out when this course meets?)
"Dates, Times and Locations: Mondays, 11.15 – 1.15, Sept. 5, 12, 14.00 – 16.00, Oct. 31, Tuesdays, 9.00 – 11.00, Sept. 13, 11.15 – 13.15, Nov.1, 14.00 – 16.00, Sept. 6, 16.15 – 18.15, Oct. 11, Wednesdays, 9.00 – 11.00, Sept. 7, 14, Oct. 12, and Thursdays, 9.00 – 11.00, Oct. 13, 18.30 – 20.30, Sept. 22."
(They keep a personalized online schedule on the Internet so we can always tell where we're supposed to show up, but it does get a little confusing. So far I haven't shown up for a class that wasn't happening, or not shown up for one that way, but I did once or twice show up expecting one subject and getting taught another.)
Compounding this is that some of the courses are pegged to the German students' trimester, like the International Commercial Transactions course. Their trimester started this week, so that class started then too. The moot court course did as well.
Anyway, so if it seems like classes are starting and stopping all the time, they are.
It's different from BU in that there I usually take 4 unit classes (classes that meet twice a week for 2 hour sessions, but that run the whole time). It gives students a chance to get more in depth in any one subject. But the shorter classes are nice too, because they give us a chance to be exposed to lots of different things. Ultimately since I'm not likely to master anything in one semester no matter how many sessions the class meets, this may be a better deal – at least at this stage of my education.