Hi I’m Vickie. And welcome to this blog post. This summer, I am so excited have the opportunity to study abroad with IPD and to share my journey with you through this blog! So hey, first things first, before I get into the juicy details of my trip, this is me. The one on the right, that is. I’m a big fan of sharks, obviously.
I’m a rising junior studying computer science, originally from Taichung, Taiwan. I enjoy staying indoors, unicycling, and using bad metaphors. I began studying German at Northwestern during my freshman year, and stuck to it because of the German Department’s amazing teaching (I mean really, wow), and because it provided a terrific balance in my schedule with my other technical courses.
So yeah, now that there are less than 24 hours to go before I leave for Berlin, I find myself surprisingly calm, especially considering how much of an emotional salad bar this trip has invoked in the past week (it’s kinda like Finals eve, when you just let it go and leave your fate to a higher power). In addition to being super excited (about the 8 hour plane ride too apparently), I also had quite a bit of pre-departure nerves. In addition to not speaking the language well, as a CS major I am also a bit worried about the humanities centric courses of this program, since the last humanities paper that I wrote was like, freshman fall. This program is going to push me out of my comfort zone and force me to learn new things. But I think it will be exciting to explore a whole new discipline and style of learning.
And this summer in Berlin, I will probably make embarrassing German mistakes, I will probably get lost in the middle of the city, and I will definitely miss Evanston, Chicago and my friends here. But my hope for this trip is that this challenge will prove to be fun, intriguing and rewarding.
I am excited for the next nine weeks and I am so thrilled to have the opportunity to share this adventure with you. Til next time!