Traveling abroad is an experience that can last a life time, no matter what your age. Seeing famous and historical sights and learning about new cultures firsthand even in a two week vacation can leave an impression in your mind forever. Studying abroad for a semester can enhance that experience and following impression exponentially. In my case, I have been honored with the chance to study abroad for an entire academic year. Montclair State’s Global Education Department, in coordination with the Overseas Neighbors of the town of Montclair, offered me a scholarship to get this first hand learning experience in Graz, Austria for the 2001/2002 academic year.
After studying and learning the German language and the history for the past eight years, throughout high school and college, I was eager to study abroad. Textbooks, literature, art, and lectures can provide a background to learning a foreign language, but studying in a country that speaks the language is the ultimate learning experience. In many ways, studying abroad is similar to studying at your home institution. I still attend classes regularly, live in a dorm, meet new people, and live in a social situation in a new town with new places and norms. The differences are, of course, phenomenal.
In Austria, my classes are taught entirely in German. I live in a dorm with students who are generally older than American university students and from around Austria and Europe, and the social situation takes place in a new country with an entirely different history and mentality. The learning experience is as much out of the classroom as it is inside. My first semester, I was enrolled in six courses designed specifically for American exchange students in the Karl Franzens University in Graz through the Amerikanistik Department and under the leadership of Dr. Roberta Maierhofer, an Amerikanistik professor and a vice rector of the university itself. The courses included: a German grammar course that met twice a week, with a separate conversation and culture course that met once a week and was taught by an Austrian Amerikanistik student, an Austrian history course which met twice a week, an International Relations course, and two literature courses, one focusing on 20th century literature and the other on 18th and 19th century literature. The six courses are taught in German by either university professors from within Graz and provide a perfect opportunity to spend the first semester in classes with a small group of other Americans and have professors who are particularly understanding of you being an exchange student. I had the opportunity to pick and choose from these six courses, as well as the chance to enroll in regular university courses and courses in the university sports institute. I decided to enroll in these six courses and not to take any regular university courses the first semester in order to give myself time to adjust to my new surroundings in a smaller environment and felt strongly that it was a worthwhile experience and that the courses and professors were well designed and extremely well chosen, respectively.
As I write, I’m on semester break and currently in an Internet Café somewhere on the Spanish island of Mallorca. One of the particular nice parts of the Austrian University calendar is that it is demanding when you are in class but has a lot of holidays. Throughout the first semester I had long weekends, a three-week Christmas break, and after another three weeks of classes and finals in January, a month long semester break in February. The second semester follows a similar course having a few long weekends, with a two-week Easter break and a week off sometime in May. These breaks provide an excellent opportunity to travel within Austria and all around Europe, especially considering Austria’s location at the edge of western Europe , and thus bordering eastern Europe and southeastern Europe as well. During the first semester, I was able to travel to Vienna twice, once a weekend long excursion with the Austrian history course, to Budapest, Hungary for a long weekend, to Zagreb, Croatia for another long weekend, and also a weekend trip within the province of Styria, where Graz is located. For the three-week Christmas break about half of the American students chose to stay in Europe and travel, while the other half, including myself, went back to the US to be with their families for the holidays.
The idea of living in a college dorm, in a foreign country, where I was not sure of my practical language skills, did not appeal to me at all in the month preceding my arrival in Graz. Nonetheless, student housing is hard to find and expensive in Graz because it is a university city and a part of the Montclair scholarship included a dorm room for the year. Since arriving in Graz in early September, I have been living in a dorm about ten minutes walk from the university and maybe 15 minutes walk from the center of the city and it could not have worked out better. The experience of living with other Austrian students is as much a learning experience as all of the other classes combined, if not more. It has made me feel more at home in Austria as well. Along the same idea, the experience of everyday life in Graz is also like living in a huge classroom without walls.
Getting to know the customs of daily life in Austria, things that even seem mundane at home in the America, add to the overall experience as much as anything as well. I have to buy fresh bread everyday from one of many bakeries all over Graz. I have to buy groceries almost daily. I cannot go to the bank from 12:30 to 2:30 because they take a two hour long lunch break, as do many of the businesses within the city. Austrians love to go out on Wednesday nights and often stay home on Friday and Saturday nights. Opera and theater are a part of almost every other week for me in Graz, and with the Montclair scholarship, tickets can be arranged for free through the mayor’s office. Drinking a coffee can take two hours and can be followed with a change in location and another two hour coffee. No one in Austria ever looks rushed or busy; it is the easiest way to notice foreigners and particularly Americans.
Overall, for the first five month, this has been an exciting and never ending adventure. I have learned more than I could ever write down on paper or explain, and have enjoyed every aspect of the program and scholarship. In a week or so, I will have to choose courses for the second semester, all of which will be in the regular university, and are sure to be a new experience as well. I hope that I have conveyed at least a little of the amazing-ness of my experience. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and it is not to be missed.