Overview

In my previous essays I alluded to a series of academic or work experiences that have shaped my identity and worldviews heavily into what they are now and in several fundamental ways all these experiences have been closely tied together in purpose or motivation.  However, perhaps the two endeavors most closely bound together were my time spent learning the German language and the one year that I studied abroad in Berlin, Germany during my first college years as an extension of those German studies.  My experience learning the German language I have already reflected upon.  However, here I will be reflecting on my year in Berlin, and the reasons for separating out these two experiences into different examinations are important ones.  The lessons I learned during this one year alone were even greater than I had bargained for and in fact a few of those lessons were far more challenging and identity-shaking than I had dared imagine.

Skills and Insights Gained

Previously I wrote about all the skill-sets I had gained in learning the German language itself, which in my mind are skills common to learning any foreign or second language.  However, being then immersed for two full, consecutive academic semesters in a society where the people spoke German as the primary language of their culture and national identity yielded knowledge and insights entirely different from those that I examined earlier, even more so because I went over as an independent student at a full-fledged German university taking all the same courses as any German student did.  In other words, I dove into a sea of sensory inputs, social interactions and everyday routines where it was vital that I learned to use my German and interpersonal skills in new and novel ways. In this vein then, I feel the most important insights I gained or skills I refined in this year included but are certainly not limited to:

• Adapting to foreign/unfamiliar surroundings and maintaining a keen sense of observation.
• Navigating, utilizing, and ‘absorbing’ the most urban, cosmopolitan and largest city environment within which I had ever lived up to that point in my life.
• Activating my German language abilities in practical, every-day and conversational contexts.
• Comprehending how informal and formal language/communication differ from one another.
• Cultivating an open mind regarding beliefs, politics or cultural norms that helped me to treat my own ‘home’ culture with more thoughtful, honest and deeper examination.

Lessons Learned

Now it would be much easier and more flattering to say that all the knowledge I gained and all the other lessons I learned from this year abroad were all as positive as those listed above.  Certainly, those insights I would never have gained with the authenticity I feel now had I never gone to Germany for this year, and that fact cannot be overstated.  However, I also learned many lessons about what it means to feel isolated, homesick, anxious about being a stranger in a strange land, and perhaps most importantly how best to recognize the limits of my capabilities at a given time and make better decisions accordingly.  I say this because as unique and eye-opening an experience as this was for me, I was not academically or linguistically as mature as I had thought I was at the time to be able to tackle this massive task all on my own.  Although, very much as intended, my German speaking and comprehension skills were greatly improved upon and made more instinctive and natural by living in Berlin, and although the cultural experience of being immersed there was unparalleled, I was quite simply overwhelmed by the advanced nature of academic German and my work suffered as a result. In other words, in my rush to travel, see the world, experience life outside of the US and throw myself into my love for German, I did not properly gauge my own abilities to accomplish the actual task before me at that moment in my life.  Through this outcome I learned serious lessons as well about patience and honest self-assessment or reflection, even if not quite in the way I had hoped or anticipated.

Impact

Taken altogether – all those insights and all those lessons learned whether positive or those not as flattering to my ego – in my one year there I felt like I gained 10 years of life experience and challenge.  My deciding to learn German was in the first place because a language was required by my college.  Yet I became so enamored not just with learning German as a system of words and grammar and idioms to speak or write with, but also with Germany and the people who embodied that language and society.  This in turn led to the personal revelation that I needed to see more of the world outside my own cultural or social ‘backyard’, and that revelation then became a need, a desire, a drive so strong that soon the notion of studying abroad while I had the opportunity was a forgone conclusion.  I could not pass up that kind of chance.  As a result, language learning, independent travel, situational adaptation, cultural exchange, urban living, and environmental observation are all, without question, aspects of my self-confidence and identity I trace heavily back to this first (though not last) experience living abroad and upon which I have relied passionately in the years since to expand my self-development.  However, in the process I also learned better how to be honest with myself, how better to make calm and well-informed decisions alongside my emotions, and how to take responsibility and ownership for all outcomes of my decisions, whatever form the resulting lessons take. In this regard my time in Berlin humbled and awed me all at once.