Europe – Page 24 – DU Abroad

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA — University of Tuebingen

Hello all! My name is Katharine Wilson and welcome to my first blog! I’ll be spending the next year studying abroad at the University of Tuebingen in Tuebingen, Germany. I chose this program because of it’s language immersion, as well as the fact that I get to spend a whole 10 months abroad! Hope you like the post!

This morning, like every morning, I decide to check my email on my phone. The only message that appears is “inbox storage full, please delete messages to make room.”

Of course.

I’ve always been anal retentive about keeping my inbox clean. I’ll keep the things I absolutely need, but I’m always happiest when my main inbox shows a beautiful, clean “0 messages.”

What the heck is going on here?

Let’s start from the beginning. My name is Katharine and I’m a current student at the University of Denver majoring in English Literary Studies and German. And starting this September, I am going to live and go to school in Tuebingen, Germany for at least the 10 months until I graduate. Woohoo!

How did this happen? I’ll explain: DU is number one in the nation for study abroad participation, and going abroad the first quarter of one’s junior year is a tried and true DU tradition. But I wanted to take it a step further. I’ve been studying German since I was 14, taking it every year in high school and every semester/quarter at two different universities for the past four years. Fun times! I decided upon my arrival at DU to become a German major, and it was one of the best decisions I could have made! The program is pretty great– fun professors, interesting courses and small enough participation that I met almost every other German major in the school, and let me tell you, they are wonderful people! I’ve been confident and happy in my decision to study German since my first class 🙂

When my junior year rolled around, there was no question I wanted to study abroad in a German-speaking country, and my preference was Germany itself. DU had several different programs in Germany, but I wanted something immersive, where I could continue to study literature while learning about German language and culture as deeply as possible. The University of Tuebingen exchange ended up being my goal: one full academic year abroad in Tuebingen, with the ability to take classes primarily taught in German, all while learning and living with mostly native students. Another (slightly terrifying) plus: only one student from DU was sent on any given year, so I would enter Europe with a clean slate, knowing almost no one on the entire continent!

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating when I say I am happy and confident in my course of study. I’m happy, confident, terrified, and incredibly anxious. But I love every second of it!

This is definitely the craziest thing I’ve done in my life, and once I got a tattoo with no one holding my hand! See, I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve lived a slightly sheltered life. Before starting college, I lived in the same bedroom of the same house for my entire life. Aurora, Colorado (a suburb of Denver) was my home for all 18 years leading up to college. And then I moved a grand total of 20 minutes away to go to DU, where I stayed with the same roommate for two years. I’ve only left the United States once: in my Sophomore year of high school, my orchestra class went to London for 5 days.

Okay, maybe I’m slightly ashamed.

Recently, I’ve had a crazy strong desire to branch farther away from all the stuff I’ve relied on so long: Colorado, my family, my high school, and everything else about my relatively stable (read: boring) life.

Coming to college was the first step in my big transition: I got two piercings and got my first tattoo; I had my first serious boyfriend; I came out to my parents as pansexual. Not all of the things I’ve done ended up for the best, but it has definitely been a crazy ride when compared to high school. And on top of all of this, 7 months ago I was diagnosed with Persistent Depressive Disorder, which has led to its fair share of life changes. Needless to say, my time at DU has, for better or worse, been really interesting!

But despite this, I’m still craving change, and I couldn’t think of a bigger one than moving an ocean away from everything I’ve ever known! That’s not to say I’m not utterly terrified (scenes of being lost in German train stations or suddenly forgetting every German word I know frequently feature in my nightmares) but I’ve been trying my best not to let fear get the better of me.

So, back to the emails. My inbox currently contains the following: my application instructions for direct enrollment in University of Tuebingen, DU’s study abroad handbook, information on billing, my visa requirements, my official admission letter from Tuebingen, a long string of emails with me trying to enroll in, register, and pay for a month-long orientation course, my flight confirmation, a time change to the flight confirmation, my rent contract for my student apartment, an exchange between me and the head of the German department where I’m trying to obtain a letter stating my language abilities, and a letter to my coordinator trying to get a copy of a payment form (from another email I had mistakenly deleted). Phew!

Packing up and going to study in a foreign country for a year takes a lot of work, but it has slowly been coming together since my acceptance in February. All I need is to pay the first month’s rent on my apartment, open a German bank account, obtain the abovementioned letter from DU’s German Department, send in the registration materials for my orientation course, pay for said orientation course, then pack my stuff and go! Actually, I thought that list was going to be a lot shorter when I began writing it…

And of course, there are other, smaller concerns. I need to seriously downsize, because I can only bring so much stuff on the plane with me. I need to buy a new purse and backpack suitable for traveling. I need to replace my old, slow-as-molasses computer. I need to brush up on my knowledge of German (and American) politics. And a whole host of other things.

So that’s where I’m at right now! Surrounded by to-do lists and mounds of papers in German I can only half-understand, I’m just trying to live in the moment and enjoy what will be my last few months in America until next July or August!

Wish me luck?

Katharine Wilson is currently studying English and German at the University of Denver. On an exchange year in Germany, she is exploring German language and culture as one of Universität Tübingen’s resident stupid Americans. Sie versteht nur Bahnhof.

My name is Joe Aumuller. I am 20 years old, enjoy candle lit dinners, long walks on the beach, and just living the dream. I hail from the North Suburbs of Chicago, but I could easily fabricate a story about growing up with wolves in Scandinavia or being raised as a professional skydiver in Peru and include as many buzzwords as you would like. I’ll eat just about anything as long as it cannot look back at me, move, kill me upon ingestion, or happen to be organs (you could probably lie to me if you wanted me to eat these, but you’d have to be a better lier than Bill Clinton). In other news, I am studying abroad for the Fall 2015 semester in Brussels, Belgium at Vesalius College. If you want to know why I shipped myself here on a luxurious Irish airline with some suit cases, here are some words that I have written. If you like the way I put words together, read away, I’m going to keep writing them.

When people talk about study abroad it can have so many different connotations. For some, study abroad is a way to take a vacation for a few weeks that they may never be able to take again; for others, a life-changing semester or year completely immersed in another culture. This ultimately depends on a couple of factors: your school, your financial situation, your major, and what you are looking to receive from your experience. At the University of Denver, your study abroad is most commonly completed as a fall semester (this is due to the fact that a semester in the fall only conflicts with one academic quarter whereas in the spring it would conflict with two), however there are options to complete shorter periods during class interims and longer periods by petition. I chose to study abroad for the upcoming fall semester of 2015 because for me, it was logistically more sound than a yearlong study and I be immersed more than an interim period study.

Choosing a program was certainly difficult, as I had an idea of where I was thinking of going, but not how. From my previous travels and “study-abroad” experience in high school in France, I really wanted to return to a Francophone region where I could experience the culture through the local language (French). I was looking at both France, Switzerland, and Belgium as well as Francophone Africa. Needless to say after Ebola, the list shrank to France and Belgium. I decided I wanted to perfect my French in a professional environment, a challenge I had never experienced before, while enjoying the luxuries of convenient travel. While I applied to four programs, Paris and Brussels were my most desired options. Both programs provided traditional studies at a foreign university as well as the opportunity to complete an internship. I am aspiring to pursue a career in foreign relations, and the ability to work in a foreign country would be a valuable tool moving forward. I am thrilled to be headed to Belgium, but I would caution students: you may not receive your top choice or are nervous about finding the perfect program, study abroad is very similar to choosing a college at home. The choice you make is completely determined by what you are willing to put into your program, and almost always, the program you are least expecting can be the most rewarding. So as your friends apply to programs and hear back on acceptances be excited for them, but most importantly, be excited for yourself. Do not base your happiness off of that of another.

Brussels_Great_Marked_Square — Great Market Square, Brussels Belgium.

I have a lot on my mind before I travel to Belgium, but I think it is excitement rather than fear. I grew up moving and traveling internationally and no stranger to suit cases, planes, and the occasional cup of coffee in the morning. Every traveler is different, but I really love the thrill of going new places. What I’m most excited for is to use my French in Belgium, it will be my first time in a French-speaking country other than France. I find the language to be so fluid and dynamic, and the challenge of trying to blend in is always entertaining. I think my second most anticipated part of the program will be living on my own in an apartment in Brussels. Being independent in a city is the best way to immerse yourself.

As far as nerves go, I have not used my French actively in quite some time, but if it were perfect already, why would I be going in the first place? I have to believe that there will be some Zen-questioning moments (stolen items, lost items, getting lost, navigating foreign healthcare, etc.), but I’ll just deal with that when it happens. My final challenge, which to be honest I’m very excited to take on, is laundry at a foreign laundromat. If any European is dumb enough to steal my clothes I will be forced to buy more stylish clothes in Brussels (what a shame…). I’m sure the people-watching will prove equally entertaining.

A lot of people are asking me how I prepared for studying abroad, I will be blunt: I did not. I have completed all of the necessary steps to go to Brussels: visa application, the credit card, apartment lease, class registration, and internship applications. However, I did not do anything to really “prepare” myself to go to Brussels. This is for two reasons: one, I was unmotivated to do anything during this summer, and two, aside from the necessary packing, there’s no need to overthink. The greatest disservice you can do to yourself is planning out every detail of study abroad like it’s a vacation. The whole point, in my humble opinion, is to challenge your status quo and to add spontaneity to your life. Studying abroad should be an adventure to anyone whether you’re in a tropical jungle or a concrete one. This being said, flexible and lethargic are different words. Packing, having the proper documentation, and researching how to travel safely are key parts to being a smart traveler. Ultimately, study abroad is going to be one wild ride, and to quote the great philosopher Ferris Bueller, “the question isn’t what are we going to do. The question is what aren’t we going to do.”

Like what you see? Follow the DU Study Abroad blog at duabroad.com or Joe Aumuller’s personal blog at jaumuller.wordpress.com

Tag: Europe

Vorstellung // Introduction

Have Program, Will Travel