My First Blog

Hi, my name is Paul Wagner, and I am about to embark on a long trip to the European continent. My home base will be in Berlin, and I will be staying with a lovely host family. I think I will really be able to learn a lot from living with these German people in everyday life. Attila and Elvira are the names of the people willing to take me in for a couple of months. But I am also planning on doing some traveling outside of Germany as well to countries like France, Italy, and Switzerland. It will be interesting to see the difference between Germany and these other countries, which are right next door. While I am there, I will also be taking classes at the university. Most of my coursework will be German language instruction. So I am hoping that between that and speaking in German with my host family and being immersed in the language, I will become relatively proficient by the end. I am also taking two other courses that are taught in English. This will be a very different experience from American college, and I think that I will learn many things outside of the classroom, as I explore and go to museums and see sites with thousands of years of history. I have some goals that I hope to achieve through this program. I want to be able to have full and meaningful conversations in German with a German speaking person and I think this will be achievable through hard work in the classroom and dedication outside of it. My other goal is to regularly speak to strangers. This takes more initiative and courage on my part to deliberately go out and speak to strangers in German. I want to achieve these goals but even if I don’t, I know I will learn something from this time that I spend there. And I think that it will be more formative than my other travels because I will be living and spending time with the people there. I really hope that I do go out and actually speak with the people though. I don’t think there are many ways in which my experience will be failure. And I am currently receiving great encouragement from three guys sitting next to me at the airport who shared their study abroad experiences in Europe a couple years ago. They also think that just being there and being able to travel is such a great opportunity. I am really excited to go and a little sad to not be at home and with many familiar faces, but luckily for me two other students from MLC are coming with me who I know quite well so I will not be all alone. They will also help me achieve my goals while I am through encouragement and mutual struggle. And I am most excited to be able to see so many new places with them and share great memories that will last a lifetime.