Ever since I can remember, I have been taking German classes. In Kindergarten, they revolved around animals and colors. In the sixth grade, we had graduated to mathematics. And now at Ohio State, I have taken courses about German history and the current political climate in Europe. Throughout all of this time learning German, it was my time living in a tiny Bavarian town that solidified my interest in the language and the country.
My best friend Annika’s father was from Germany, and her grandparents still live in a tiny, rural town called Taufkirchen. The summer after the tenth grade, we both decided to go stay with them for a month and attend the local high school. Living in Bavaria was a bit of a culture shock. It is extremely isolated and homogenous, and unlike most cities in Germany, there were a lot of people who didn’t speak any English. Including her grandparents.
Attending the high school was also unlike any experience I had ever had in Germany. Unlike the previous time I had studied there, I had no exchange student whose job it was to show me the ropes and walk me around places. Nobody to tell me how the cafeteria worked or where my next class was. I was separated from Annika, and we were both assigned a course schedule for the next couple of weeks. It was definitely nerve wracking to jump head first into a German high school and German courses, and in retrospect I wish I was more open from the very beginning. But once I got over the feeling of always being lost, it was an incredible learning experience about the education system in Germany and it definitely improved my confidence in my German speaking ability.
Next Spring, I want to be challenged again in a similar way by spending a full semester in Germany. There is no equivalent to being pushed this far outside my comfort zone, and I know that participating in real German courses, hopefully at Bonn University, will both improve my German fluency and provide important new takes on the disciplines I am studying. Because so much of education is about perspective, especially in the Humanities and Social Sciences, there is no doubt in my mind that learning about the past and how to interpret the present in a different country will greatly improve my critical thinking abilities. Having experienced all of this on a smaller scale in Taufkirchen, I am looking forward to this new experience living in Germany next year.