If your experience is anything like mine, meeting other international students will be the most memorable part of your time abroad. Building relationships with other exchange students is so unique because you are all going through the same things. You are all adjusting to life in a new city, meeting new people, missing home, and trying to experience everything that you can. Having these feelings in common helps you to build friendships for life. As sad as I was leaving Mannheim, I also knew that I could be excited to reunite with these friends again. I now know that I have couches to sleep on all over the world and I learned more from them about cultures and life than I could have ever learned from a semester of school.

other Americans

Having other Americans in my program made the first few weeks easier for me. They were missing a lot of the same food and American norms as I was. However, as the semester progressed, I realized that while we shared some things in common, there were cross cultural experiences among our American group of exchange students as well. I noticed that I found myself most comfortable with the other Americans from New England and New York. Most of the other American exchange students came from North Carolina. While some of them were like me in many ways, I was also surprised how different many of them were. Religion, food, and way of life in the south can be very different from what I’m used to having lived in Massachusetts my whole life. This gave me a new perspective on how people see Americans. While we all come from the same country, we can also be vastly different. My friends who grew up in New York City were vastly different from my friend who grew up in San Diego. This made me realize that I cannot make generalizations about the exchange students from other countries. While I may suspect that all German people enjoy bread rolls every morning, I cannot know that based just on my experiences with my German neighbors. Regional cultures within countries can make a huge difference in norms and cross cultural experiences. It was also really cool to meet so many Canadian students while abroad. Before studying in Mannheim, I had never really interacted much with Canadians. It was really funny to travel with them because when asked if they were American, they would quickly correct the person and proudly say Canadian. We would then usually look at each other and say, “so what is the difference anyways?” We realized that for the most part, Canadians are very similar to Americans. The only differences we noticed were some vocabulary differences and phrases. I’m glad now that I live so close to Canada and will be able to reunite with these friends much more easily than my European exchange student friends.

Karneval/ Frühlingsfest

One of my best memories in Mannheim was my trip to Cologne for Karneval. While I was fortunate enough to have a German friend living in Cologne, I was not the only exchange student from Mannheim making the trip. A lot of my other exchange student friends knew that this was one of those things that we had to experience in Germany. While most of the German students rolled their eyes and explained how tired they were of Karneval madness, all of the exchange students could not wait to experience it. Some of my friends just went for the day and night, while others spent the entire weekend there like I did. On the last night we all met up on the streets of Cologne to see the ghost parade at night. Everyone was dressed in ridiculous costumes and we followed the parade around immersing ourselves in the German tradition. These special German events are a really good way to bond and travel with other exchange students. These events sometimes don’t spark interest for the German students since their so used to them and can go any year. However as an exchange student you want to take advantage of all the German traditions and festivals that you can. Another festival that I went to was Frühlingsfest in Stuttgart. This was a small festival that felt like a combination of what we think of as carnivals (Ferris wheels, cotton candy, etc.) and Oktoberfest. There were beer halls and beer tents set up in the festival where they served large liter sized beers. I went for the day with a group of exchange students using the Baden-Württemberg pass by train. This was a really cheap way for all of us to go since we were in such a large group. We met a lot of German people there who were really excited to meet and drink beer with us. Seeing all of the lederhosen and traditional German food made us really feel like we were Germans for the day.

Weekly Dinners

I lived in Am Steingarten in Mannheim. This was a dorm-like residence building where many other exchange students lived. About half way through the semester, some of the exchange students began cooking big dinners for everyone. We started a rotation where we would switch off between American themed dinners, Chinese, and Norwegian. These dinners gave us something to look forward to and to break up our school weeks. It gave us a chance to be reminded of home by cooking dishes familiar to us and also gave us the chance to try foods and traditions from other cultures as well. We tried to cook fun American dishes such as sloppy joes, pancakes and waffles, burgers and hotdogs, and mashed potatoes. Although it was nice to eat these familiar dishes, it was nothing compared to the international meals we were treated to. The only Chinese food I had ever had was the greasy yet popular American version of it. This was nothing like the fresh and authentic Chinese food we had prepared for us. Our Chinese friends shopped for the freshest ingredients at a Chinese market and prepared some fantastic meals. Another memorable meal we had was created by our Norwegian friends. They prepared a traditional porridge for us which is usually served around Christmas time. They played us some soothing Norwegian music, and taught us about their traditions. They had hidden an almond in one of the bowls of porridge. The person who ends up with the almond wins a prize. In our case, it was a large bar of Norwegian chocolate, according to them, “the best chocolate in the world.” This was a really fun way to learn more about the cultures of the friends we were living with. The dinners were always a fun time and I highly suggest organizing something like this with international friends.  

Meeting other international students while traveling

As an exchange student you will do a lot of traveling. Most of the trips that I took were with my American friends. We noticed that as Americans, we felt like we had to take full advantage of seeing all of Europe that we could. Our European friends did not share the same urgency which we did since they live on the same continent. Also, many of our European friends had already seen most of the major cities which we wanted to see. When visiting other cities, hostels are a great place to meet other international students. When a group of us visited Prague, we attended a few of the activities that the hostel offered for free. One night they offered a free beer tasting to introduce and teach us about some beers from the Czech Republic. Not only was this a great way to learn about beer, but also a great way to meet new people. At that event there were students from all over the world. We got to talking to them and ended out sightseeing with them the next day. Some of the students who were studying in France actually came and visited us in Mannheim. If the hostel that you’re staying at doesn’t offer any events, check to see if they have a bar. Some of the best nights and bars that we experienced while traveling where right in the basement of our hostel. The bars usually offer cheap drinks, but more importantly a relaxed atmosphere to meet new people. If you have the chance, I suggest visiting some of your international friends in their home cities. I never got to visit any of my exchange student friends, however I did spend a weekend in the home of my German friend. Being a guest in a German home was a really special experience and helped me to see what German home life was like. Her family spoiled me and cooked me amazing meals and didn’t let me help with anything. They were excited to hear about my experiences in Germany and taught me some of their customs as well.  

International Dinner

International Dinner

The international dinner was a great way to interact with other exchange students. During my time in Mannheim, there were two international dinners. One was at the end of the winter academy, and the other was during the regular semester. You are asked to register for these international dinners, and specify what you plan on bringing. Each student brings either an appetizer, entree, or dessert from their home country. I attempted to make buffalo chicken. Even though it didn’t come out quite like home, it was still a treat for myself and other Americans who were missing the dish. When we arrived at the dinner we were overwhelmed by the food and the enthusiasm. Everyone was so excited about what they cooked and wanted everyone to try it. It was really nice to see everyone genuinely excited to try and learn about food from other cultures. Pastries from France, salsa from Mexico, and freshly baked pretzels from Germany were just a few of the authentic dishes we were able to sample. Everyone loaded their plates and sat down to enjoy the meal together. As the dinner progressed, the drinking games slowly began. Each group of international students from the same country showed us the games they play while they’re hanging out and drinking with friends. Although drinking games are certainly not the most important facts to know about other countries, it was a really fun way to learn something new. It was a way for us all to bond and connect with each other as young people. We all realized that no matter where you’re from, playing games while drinking beer seems to be something that reminds everyone of home. This night was so memorable, not only because of the delicious food, but because of the amazing conversations too. Everyone was so excited to talk about what they cooked which made it so easy to start conversations.

Class

In most of my classes, it was difficult to distinguish international students from the German students. This was because most of my classes were large and conducted in English. However, in my small seminar classes, I noticed that teachers really embraced the international presence and used it as learning examples. I took a class called Media and Democracy which was a very small seminar of 5 students. There were 3 American students, one Dutch, and one German. The class was focused a lot on American politics and media. However, most classes left plenty of room for discussion. Hearing from the two non American students was really interesting. I felt as though I already knew a lot of the core materials of the class, so hearing how politics differs in the Netherlands and Germany was really cool. We came to the consensus that the US has too little political parties, and the Netherlands has too many (they even have a party for animals.) In another small block seminar that I took used the international examples for learning as well. The class was about service dominant logic management. I was the only American in the class, and had no idea that there was a difference between American service logic, and the rest of the world. On the first day of class, we learned that there are three main types of service logic, Nordic, American, and French. The type that we would be learning about in class was Nordic service logic. At first I thought that this was going to be pointless for me to learn about, but then I realized it was quite a unique learning experience. I don’t know when else I could ever learn about a different type of service culture. Listening to the other exchange students’ experiences was a helpful tool for me to understand this type of management.

                In my large classes, I found it helpful to surround myself with other international students in class. Since we weren’t used to the norms of German university lectures, it was nice to have each other to learn with. We were all a bit confused when the other German students either clapped or knocked on their desk at the end of class, but by the end of the semester we were used to it. University life was an interesting conversation to have amongst the international students. I learned that multiple choice Scranton tests are not used everywhere. My exams in Germany were all 90 minutes and hand written. My Norwegian friends explained to me that their exams are usually about five hours long and they are expected to produce a text regarding one question or topic.