Editor's Note: This is the fifth in a series of journal entries written by Heidi Lynch as she reflects on her undergraduate educational experiences. Part 4 was published on November 11, 2004.
8/25/05
Reflections on Berlin
When I wrote my last installment of “My Educational Journey” in September 2004, I had finished my Department of State internship in Frankfurt and was just beginning my semester studying at Humboldt Universität in Berlin. When I arrived in Berlin in August and began to explore the city, I felt as though the next few months would be some of the most memorable of my life. Indeed, I was not disappointed. Even the most routine of days in Berlin seemed intensely exhilarating and eventful.
First of all, my academic experience in Berlin was excellent. I had courses in German art and politics, business and trade in Eastern Europe, advanced German conversation and writing, and the history of immigrants in Germany. Although my classmates were other American students, my courses were taught completely in German by German professors. This experience was a challenge but an exciting and rewarding one that was one of my favorite aspects of my study abroad experience. Another highlight of the semester was a trip to Vienna with two other students from my program for an international student conference on business and trade in Eastern Europe. At this conference, our team interacted with other student teams from Romania, Austria, Bulgaria, and the United States and represented Deutsche Telekom in an international business simulation.
Perhaps the most thought-provoking part of my studies in Germany was a sociology class on the history of immigrants in German culture. I found this course particularly intriguing because I saw the effects of immigration daily in the streets of my own neighborhood: I shopped at a Vietnamese grocery store and hung out at a Russian cafe around the corner from my apartment. Despite the troubling legacy of the Nazi era and the widely held misconception of Germany as a homogeneous culture of tall, blue-eyed blondes, immigration actually has played a key role in German history since prehistoric times. People from all over the world live and work in modern Germany, and their distinctive traditions shape contemporary German culture. Turkish-Germans make up the largest immigrant group in Germany, and their cultural influence is visible everywhere, from the ubiquitous street stands selling savory kebabs to the presence of Turkish translations on signs in public places. In fact, I became so interested in studying the effects of immigration in Germany that I decided to write my senior honors thesis on the interaction between Turkish immigrant communities and the native German population.
In addition to the phenomenal academic experience I had, my life outside the classroom was also richly educational. In a city as international, cosmopolitan, and deeply historic as Berlin, even the small dealings of daily life took on an appealing sense of adventure. In fact, I learned an incredible amount just within the walls of my little walk-up apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, a quirky, bohemian neighborhood in East Berlin only a few blocks from where the Berlin Wall once stood. I shared this apartment with two fantastic women. Johanna was a sculptor and artist who grew up in East Berlin. From the time she was a child, she had experienced firsthand the strong arm of the Stasi, the East German secret police, because of her family's free-thinking beliefs. As a student of politics, hearing about her life experiences was absolutely fascinating. I'll never forget her description of the night the Wall came down. I had learned a great deal about the Berlin Wall during my studies, but getting to know Johanna as a person made the issue real to me. My other roommate, Merle, was just as interesting. She was a young German-Australian architect who had lived in Somalia, Germany, and Africa as a child and had just moved to Berlin from Perth, Australia. She and I realized that our hometowns—Pittsburgh and Perth—are literally on opposite sides of the globe. I found it somehow very moving that Johanna, Merle, and I—three people from strikingly different backgrounds—came together in a little apartment in a city once isolated and divided by a Wall.
Looking back on my time in Berlin, I can't help but think how lucky I was to have had such a tremendous experience. I felt as though I was right in the middle of things: in the middle of a city pulsing with energy and freedom, in the middle of a fantastic blend of cultures and traditions, and in the middle of a place once dominated by dark and divisive political forces that now had its eye turned squarely towards the future. In Berlin, what I had studied and learned about from a distance as a student of international politics and German now finally took concrete form. I met people from literally all over the world, saw history as a part of actual people's lives, and put my German ability to work every day both in and outside of class. When I returned from Berlin, I came away with not only fluency in German but also a reaffirmed passion to be involved in international affairs for the rest of my personal and professional life.
—hjl