#StudyAbroadBecause it will introduce you to yourself

Submitted by Dr. Jessie Voigts on Sun, 02/26/2017 - 01:17

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Rebecca Schuman, Ph.D., is the author of the comic memoir Schadenfreude, A Love Story: Me, the Germans, and 20 Years of Attempted Transformations, Awkward Miscommunications, and Humiliating Situations That Only They Have Words For. She studied abroad in: Germany (1995, 1997); Czech Republic (2004, 2006); Austria (2008)

Rebecca Schuman, Ph.D.: #StudyAbroadBecause it will introduce you to yourself

What motivated your decision to go abroad? How/why did you choose where to go?
As a college freshman, I was obsessed—obsessed—with the literature of Franz Kafka. All I wanted to do was read his books, talk about his books, and write very derivative rip-offs of his books. I didn’t speak a word of German, though—and, lo and behold, at the college level and above, if you want to study an author’s work seriously, you have to do it in the original language. So I was a woman with a mission: Go immerse myself in the German language, immediately! (Irony was, of course, that though he spoke and wrote in German, Kafka lived in Prague, which is now in the Czech Republic. But learning Czech would come later…)

After an ill-thought-out nose piercing in Amsterdam

What was your experience like? What is your favorite memory? What were some challenges you observed?
My experience was transformative, but also ridiculous. As obsessed as I was with getting fluent in German, I was also terrified of Germans, so I didn’t converse with locals nearly as much as I should have—and that included my first host family in 1995. I could barely speak the language when I got to their house, and instead of allowing myself to speak terribly and make a lot of mistakes so that I could learn, I just basically shut down and avoided them. What a mistake! My favorite memory is from my second study-abroad in 1997, when I lived for most of an academic year in Berlin. I lived in this crazy, very-illegal loft in the wild district of Kreuzberg, and one night I was hanging out with my five German roommates and their friends, and one of them asked me what part of Germany I was from because he couldn’t place my accent! I was finally fluent in German. It was the greatest accomplishment of my life.

A weekend trip to Istanbul from Vienna, 2009

What skills did you develop from your experience? Do you feel changed from your experience abroad?
Well, fluency in German, like I said, and later, some language competency in Czech (Czech is really hard). The ability to read maps and navigate large, strange cities! But yes, I am absolutely changed by my experience abroad. My time in Berlin, Prague and Vienna simply made me the person I now am. When I was a college professor, I even got to teach a German cultural studies course called “Berlin-Prague-Vienna” that was all about those three cities that had meant so much to me—and my students told me that my personal connection to those cities was so strong that they really felt inspired to visit them ASAP.

Preparing to give an hourlong colloquium on my dissertation research--in German! Vienna, 2009

Has your experience helped you get to where you are today? If so, how?
One hundred and fifty percent. Even though I don’t live in Germany (or Prague or Austria) right now, part of me will always be there. Sometimes I miss certain spots and moments there—the tram stop near Berlin’s Museuminsel in the middle of the night; Prague’s Charles Bridge at the crack of dawn before the tourists arrive; the top of Vienna’s Wilhelminenberg, where there’s a lovely palace and a beautiful forest and you can see the whole city—that I physically ache for them. I am so defined by my study-abroad experiences that I wrote an entire book about them, in fact.

My student transit pass, Berlin, 1997

What advice would you share with other students who are thinking of going abroad?
First, make a budget and really stick to it, so that you can take weekend trips to as many places as possible. Also, stay in hostels with 90 beds to a room while you’re young and resilient! It saves money and you will make friends from all over the world. And finally and most importantly, never, ever, ever turn down an invitation from a local for coffee, or (even better) for a home-cooked meal at his or her parents’ house, where you can really experience local family life.

Devouring a chocolate-covered apple at a Munich Christmas market, 2008

How has international education impacted or influenced your cultural identity?
I spent my penultimate year of graduate school as a Fulbright scholar in Austria, and I took the mission to foster intercultural communication—Senator Fulbrigh’s legacy, if you will—very seriously. I spent the year thinking of what it meant to be a Jewish American in Europe at that moment in time (2008, the election of Barack Obama), and making a studied effort to be the best possible cultural ambassador for the US.