Introduction

This story begins really a couple years into the first portion of my college career when I studied at the University of Illinois.  All students in my program at the time were required to complete some semesters of a foreign language, although being fresh out of high school, navigating my Psychology studies and General Education requirements and living on my own for the first time in my life, learning a foreign language was not the highest priority on my mind, I will admit.  This to some extent explains why my first attempt at a foreign language in college, Italian, went so poorly.  However, needing still to complete more language courses and having in the meanwhile made various friends and acquaintances in German studies, the next language class I decided to take was German.

Very soon into my German language studies I became completely captivated, especially since German came much more naturally to me than Italian had, for whatever reason.  By virtue of exploring this new language I began to know more of German culture, history, or literature, and in turn this interaction with German culture only intensified my efforts to perfect my language skills. After several hardworking semesters taking German courses on campus, I even decided to apply for a study abroad program at my university.  That study abroad will be the subject of a separate reflection essay. However, suffice to say for the moment all such German studies could not have been more rewarding for my intellectual development, manifesting in the ways I study and learn, in the broadening and deepening of my worldview and in the evolution of my exploratory and problem-solving inner nature.

Skills and Insights Gained

During all this time studying German, which amounted to nearly four consecutive college years, there is one insight that I came to believe most strongly amongst the many I obtained from this experience:  learning another language (any language) besides one’s native language, whether as an adult or being raised bilingually or through any number of avenues, is one of the greatest mind-expanding experiences anyone could ever have.  To examine in detail all the reasons why I feel this way would take many pages, however much of it can be reduced to the fundamental realization that virtually everything of one’s memories, identity, beliefs, cultural values, or very thought processes are wrapped up in language.  Therefore, as I progressed further and further along in my German studies, I sensed that many of my own mental capacities and abilities were fundamentally changing along with my language skill.  While being able to speak, read, write, and comprehend actively the German language was the primary goal and explicit skilled result of studying German, other skills were greatly evolved as well, including:

• An advanced and much more analytical command of my first language, English.
• Greater confidence adopting expanded vocabularies and utilizing advanced creative linguistic expressions – in other words, using language in novel and more personal ways.
• A more thorough understanding of logic and argumentative structures, owing to learning multiple grammars and contextual linguistic cues.
• The understanding that communication involves more variables and factors than mere spoken or written ‘word’, giving me more flexibility to adapt to different communicative scenarios.
• A thorough appreciation of language as an emotional art form as much as a means of conveying information.

Lessons Learned

The greatest lesson I have learned from diving into German language and cultural studies has been that I can see patterns amongst data and information, including linguistically, far more readily and quickly than I had realized.  This sharpness in resolving large amounts of raw data, traditionally speaking, as well as sensory information in terms of interpersonal and linguistic interactions into either tacit or explicit knowledge that I can work with productively has served me very well, especially during my one year of study in Berlin or even earlier when I spent one month in Vienna.  As a result of all that course study and cultural immersion I reached what would be considered a high-intermediate command of the language and most recently I have applied these skills, for example, at my workplace where I represent primarily SWISS, Austrian and Lufthansa Airlines, all of which are the flagship airlines of German-speaking countries.  There I have been able to utilize the German language in speaking with passengers, customers, or even airline colleagues over the course of the last several years.  This said, it is that evolution of mind that comes with learning any new language and examining those thought processes in a more self-aware and nuanced manner that has led me to this point in my professional and academic life.

Impact

Learning about languages and how our minds process or acquire them was as rewarding an experience as learning the German language itself, to be able to communicate with it and understand it as authentically as possible even if not as a native speaker.  This passion for languages has been a driving motivation ever since, and even now those studies of German have informed my decision to attend DePaul and to pursue the field of study I have newly chosen for myself, Computer Science.  I say this because my primary goal is to learn yet another kind of language, computer programming languages, and as odd as it might sound at first, I can easily see so many of those skills and insights listed above and the resulting evolution of mind applied to the creative and problem-solving nature of computer programming also.  Therefore, I am quite confident my advanced German and English knowledge has prepared me to further my computer programming expertise with an ease that would not have been present otherwise and is a piece of my personal self-confidence I will leverage in my studies and career thereafter to full effect.