Student to Student

The Shock of Arrival

By Rebecca A. Seebert, Lewis and Clark College

I sat down on the single bed with unfamiliar green and black sheets in my new room, the white sterile walls staring down on me. "Where am I and what am I doing here?" I asked myself, tears rolling down my cheeks.

Just a few minutes earlier, I had been dropped off at this campus compound of cafés, discos, and dorms. "I should be excited," I told myself. "Go explore. Go meet your new neighbors."

But I couldn't. I couldn't face someone with whom I could barely speak. I had had four years of German and one year abroad already, but I was petrified. After some time I worked up the courage (or was it simply hunger?) to walk to a café for dinner and use my basic German skills to order a Greek salad and a coke. This was not the place I wanted to be. I wanted to be with my parents and friends, walking around my familiar college campus, speaking my language.

The first few days I slept a lot and impatiently waited for the program to officially begin so I would be surrounded by some familiar faces from school. After four long, lonely days we had our first group dinner at a local café, and it was a blessing. English filled my ears. Some classmates were excited to be in Munich, but others, like me, were homesick, counting the days until the program would end.

Things soon began to improve as classes, group trips, and Oktoberfest filled our first month. I met my floormates and my fear of leaving my room disappeared. The formerly intimidating city shrank in size as I became more familiar with the layout. I found the computer lab where the conveniences of e-mail made my dismal days a bit more hopeful and where I could vent to my family and friends who, in return, would fill me in on the ongoings of life at home. Life was becoming a bit more tolerable.

In January I was hired to work in a cafe, which helped my confidence immensely. I realized that I could speak, I could make it. During our two-month vacation I traveled around Germany and spoke with former West and East Germans about unification. This experience helped me to better understand the Germans.

More than anything, I found that keeping busy is what keeps one happy abroad. A job, a music group, fun classes--anything to keep busy and around local people will make an exchange successful and enjoyable. Those who only travel and spend time by themselves may end up with great photographs and a thick journal but with few valuable memories and experiences of their host country. And they definitely will not have mastered the language.

REBECCA A. SEEBERT is a German studies major and communications minor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR. and traveled as a Rotary exchange student to the island of Usedom in northeastern Germany.