Or, translated from German to English, “Studying in California: The coolest university in America,” an exchange student’s take on UC Davis and the Davis community, published Jan. 3 by Spiegel Online, the online version of the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel. Here is a link to the article as published, in German. And here is the translation to English, starting with Spiegel Online's introduction:

Americans are fat, lazy and pollute the environment? Not so on the campus of the University of California at Davis, says exchange student Christoph Heinrichs: His fellow students fight for clean oceans and a better climate. But they also like to shop.

Handle bars quivering, unsure and with blushed faces, the young students pedal along. Every now and then, one falls over. Older students laugh and cheer at every fall, then hurry over to their new fellow students and help them up. Dozens of onlookers congregate each year on the first day of the new term at the bicycle traffic circles of the small town of Davis. They know that, like most American adolescents, the freshmen on the local campus of the University of California may be able to drive cars, but they are stumped by a bicycle. But here, in the bicycle town of Davis, this is not good enough — something they learn once and for all after this embarrassing ritual.

Almost everything about the Californian student town is different from the rest of the U.S.A. Foreign students in particular soon set aside their prejudices: people in Davis are ecologically aware and live sustainably, they even separate their waste. Volunteering in clubs and sports teams is already part of American student life.

UC Davis was honored as the ‘coolest university of the country’

The kind of dedication Davis students show, however, is rare. The student group California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) is particularly engaged. With a lot of enthusiasm and commitment, the young do-gooders organize campaigns for a better climate, more democracy and less poverty. In as little as six weeks, they registered more than 4,000 students as voters for the presidential elections. On Halloween, they collect tinned food for food pantries for the homeless instead of candies.

CALPIRG currently fights for a ban on plastic bags to save the Pacific Ocean from further garbage pollution. The university cafeteria and the bus service in Davis are organized solely by students: Business students take care of the financial side, engineering students service machines and vehicles and their fellow students work as cooks, cashiers and bus drivers. For these initiatives the Sierra Club, an American environmental organization, in August 2012 named the university "the coolest university of the country.”

Still, the university does not have an entirely clean record. A year ago, pictures and video clips circulated on the Internet that showed a police officer spraying students who were sitting on the ground during an Occupy demonstration with pepper spray. The open and polite residents of the town do not like this kind of incident at all. They prefer to tell foreigners and recent arrivals that according to statistics, Davis is the city with the second-highest rate of education of the country after Seattle and that it is also very liberal — two-thirds of its residents voted in November for Obama.

A uniform university look, paid for by credit card

But all this climate awareness and the high level of education do not inhibit consumerism: Every day, students frequent in large numbers the numerous Starbucks cafes and the burger and taco joints on campus, most of them uniformly attired in university merchandise. Wherever one looks, the golden letters of the UC Davis logo shine on hooded sweaters, sweatpants and base caps. Students willingly spend vast sums of money on this university look — of course, always with credit cards — even though they already invest a lot of money as students of UC Davis. Many take out huge loans to pay $14,000 per year in tuition, health insurance, dorm rents and study material.

No surprise that any kind of "free stuff" is very popular: whether at soccer or football games, a student club fair or at info booths of local restaurants, students patiently stand in ridiculously long lines to get hold of free T-shirts printed with advertisements, water bottles or gaudy plastic trinkets. When these young Americans hear that almost all German states do not charge any tuition, they are at first amazed and then sigh with envy.

What they often do not know: we in Germany can only dream of numerous sports teams, vast green spaces, gigantic sports centers and a wide variety of work- and study spaces. But no one would make fun of accident-prone aspiring bicyclists — riding bicycles is something we already learn at primary school age.