You’re going to spend a year abroad. This is no small feat. You have been well prepared, and it’s unlikely that anything I could possibly write will change that. Despite that, here’s some stuff that I wrote to try to help you prepare for your year.
Some of these things are (hopefully understandably) centered around southwest Germany and the Reutlingen program. Sorry about that. Just kidding, not really.
VIEP = Valparaiso International Engineering Program. Take five years instead of 4 to finish your undergraduate degree by adding a semester of overseas study and an internship abroad, and end up wth a language (German, French, Spanish, Chinese) minor or major.
Skype your family as often as you please.
Foreign language faculty at VU advised that exposure to the English language should be limited as much as possible. The thought behind this is to allow yourself to the opportunity for as thorough immersion as possible. This makes sense – the more German (or French or Spanish or Chinese) you hear and use, the better you will be able to consistently and accurately speak and understand it.
This advice, though well-intentioned, is bogus, or at best unnecessary. For one, English is the common language in the dorms (at least in Reutlingen – I cannot speak for the other programs), even before German. You’re automatically in an environment where you’ll need to hear and use English all the time. No need to impose false barriers on your experience that won’t make any difference.
Next, you’re probably going to be plagued with some homesickness, at least once during your time abroad (if you’re not, maybe see somebody about that). Skipping home is a great way to help some of this go away. Your family is important (understatement), and it’s important to maintain that relationship.
Granted, you should not spend 100% of your free time calling home. You have a new place to explore (and getting out can also help with homesickness). But if you do your thing, you’ll experience plenty of immersion as-is. You’ll be just as fluent as you otherwise would have been, and you’ll also get to share your experiences regularly with your loved ones.
Find a family.
I can’t give advice on how to do this, as I more or less had a family waiting for me when I arrived (though I have heard that churches can be good, if that’s your thing). Back in 1980 (or something), my mom did a 3-week (or so) exchange program. She stayed with the Neumärker Family, and fortunately stayed in touch over the years. The then-12-year-old, now-decidedly-older-and-altogether-wondeful-year-old Isa conveniently lives with her husband Jojo and children Rebecca and Cassian near Stuttgart, which is conveniently close to Reutlingen, which is conveniently where I am living this year.
Hopefully, you will have the sense to see a substitute family as more than an outlet for laundry and meals. Spending time around kids is therapeutic, no matter how active or crazy they may be. At the very least, it gets you outside for exercise, and it also exposes you to a facet of German language that you otherwise wouldn’t be hearing. In my case, these kids are less familiar with Americans than the dorm crowd is, so the quality of questions is WAY better for meaningful introspection about myself and my country.
Furthermore, immersion better than this does not exist. You get people who will correct your deutsch in a snap, and who will get it right 100% of the time way faster than any classmate or dictionary ever could. You’re also not in an environment where you can get away with just doing your thing (in my case, programming and playing with twisty puzzles and reading Game of Thrones). You are expected to converse and follow directions. Instead of having to make the choice to put shoes on and go outside for immersion, you can get it from the comfort of your pajamas.
A family can also provide irreplaceable insight into local traditions. Sure, you can read about this stuff in books or on Wikipedia, but experiencing it gives you far more insight and appreciation. Plus it’s more fun than reading about foreign traditions on Wikipedia, and I can say that because I’ve tried it.
Buy your own plane tickets.
I fell for the trap of going with the group plane ride, and along with it, the group prices. The logic that “group prices mean discounts” does not apply for flights, or if it does, it sure didn’t for me.
You can even buy your outbound ticket on the same flight as the rest of the group, but save a few hundred bucks by doing so.
Don’t go for a round trip ticket either, unless you are reasonably certain that you can change your return flight for free. This will most certainly not be the case with the group rate. Round trip tickets are good for short trips, and on the short term, they can even save money. Since you can’t book flights until a year in advance anyway, these savings will not be present by a round trip booking for VIEP participants.
Public Transportation
There’s a thing called the Anschluss Studi-Ticket, which is an extension of your Naldo pass into the Stuttgart region. Super cheap (in the long term, meaning ~$300 one-time), and way worthwhile. If the Naldo region gets boring for you (it shouldn’t, but just in case it somehow does), this gives you a (somewhat) big city to explore. At current prices, it pays for itself in just over 9 visits.
Networking
Herr Veit is the most important friend of VIEP at the Hochschule Reutlingen. He’s so well-connected that I’m pretty sure the only German official who doesn’t answer directly to him is Angela Merkel. He’s a huge support for VIEP participants, and will gladly help you secure a co-op during your second semester. (It’s also possible to accomplish this through other means – Herr Veit is certainly not the only path to a placement)
However, he’s a busy man. You may have to be more explicit with him than feels polite in order to get your point across. He also comes with a very quick turnaround time. Just be prepared to hit the ground running, and you’ll do just fine.
This has not been an exhaustive list.
