Lasse Rothhardt

By Lasse Rothhardt

Leave home at six o’clock in the morning, get on a plane and arrive 22 hours later in a new world, a different country, where you will live for the next ten months, without seeing friends or family during this time, not knowing anyone at the beginning. Why would anyone do something like that? This is my story, from the very beginning to the end, a small insight into the experiences of a world traveler.

I always knew I wanted to spend a year in a different country. Some of my cousins did it and all of them had a good experience, so why not try it myself? My parents supported me and luckily they would cover the costs for me. It started about two years ago with getting information about different organizations and applying to them. I also applied to get a full scholarship program from the governments of the US and Germany.

A lot of work is necessary to get accepted to ordinary exchange programs; a letter where I introduce myself to the committee, recommendation letters from different teachers for the scholarship, and school reports from the last three years. Then meetings to prepare you for the year abroad. I got accepted to the organizations I applied to, but I still was hoping for the scholarship.

The American version of the scholarship program is called CBYX (Congress-Bundestag-Youth-Exchange). First I had to attend a meeting with some of the other applicants in my area. There are only 250 scholarships for Germany, one for each electoral constituency. For me that meant there were about 20 other people who also wanted the one scholarship I got. In this meeting we had to show our knowledge of the English language as well as knowledge of how the governments of both Germany and US work. We also had to give a five minute presentation about a political topic.

Three months later I received a letter, that I made it into the second level. The people who conducted the first interviews chose five of the 20 applicants and handed all their information to the elected representative in the electoral constituency. All of us had to meet him in his office and talk to him.

I have to admit that I had a little advantage there. I’m a student at the same school that he attended and he started to study chemistry at the university, just as I plan to and wrote in my introduction letter. We had some things in common which maybe helped a little.

Finally, I got the call that I got the scholarship. I think my parents were happier about it than I was.  I already had had the feeling that I might get it, and I actually wasn’t decided if I liked the organization that hosted the scholarship in my area at that point in time. To prepare us for our year in the US, the organization organized a one week meeting for the scholarship holders in Berlin, where we would learn more about German history and have the chance to talk to some students who were in the program two years before. We were told all the things we had to pay attention to when we came to the US and how some possible problems could be solved.

The next step was to find a host family for each student. There were two group flights for the ones who already had their families. I got my family almost at the last minute, three weeks before school would start in New York. They told me I would fly two weeks later on September 4^th, which meant in my case I had to go to school in Germany for two weeks, because it already had started.

The flight was already a great start into the year. Since I was one of the last students to leave, I was flying on my own. For that reason I had supervision by employees of the company who helped me get around the lines at the airports and made sure everything was good during the flight. It was fun, I’ve never felt that important before. It was about 3800 miles, and 22 hours traveling. Very exhausting.  Then I saw my new home for the first time and was glad to get some sleep.

I used the first days to get over the jet lag and my host parents used those days to have me meet part of their family that lives at the Canadian border. No chance to slowly adjust to the new culture, it just started right off with full speed. It was good this way; there was just no time to think of the people I left behind, everything was new and interesting and I had to concentrate on getting as much information as possible from the pile of unknown words that were thrown at me with every sentence.

One thing that really surprised me was how friendly and willing to help everyone was. The first day at school was a challenge and the following days were not much easier. The first problem was that the bus stopped at the elementary entrance, and I only knew the entrance at the high school office from my first visit. I had no idea where to go and all kinds of people were going different places, many of them middle schoolers who I didn’t want to follow. I must have looked a little confused because Mr Berry was standing there and helped me to find my way in. He was a great help the following days too because I somehow got lost in the middle school several times and he always showed me the way back. I didn’t realize he was the principal of the middle school for a long time. But also most of the students tried to help me where ever they could, I’ve never experienced anything like that before.

Another challenge of course was the language. People were talking way too fast to understand them and often I didn’t know words, and in return my pronunciation was bad and I was always missing words so most people had problems understanding me in the beginning. That sounds bad, but it wasn’t, it actually just caused a lot of smiling and laughing and made it even easier to become a student like anyone else.

Little successes helped me too, for example when I started to know the names of my teachers, or when I didn’t need a map to find the rooms anymore. I established new friends, my lunch table group, the Chamber Singers, it was quite helpful to have some people in my homeroom that I was spending time with after school too.

I think I really felt home when the sports started and I was able to run cross country (which was more an accident then planned) with a team that I would see and talk to every day.

The best thing about my time in the US were all the things I could experience that I never would have experienced in Germany. I’ve never seen so much school spirit or a sports team where everyone is important, because we just don’t think that way in Germany. I was able to be in the play, another thing that is not offered at my school. And I’m sure there are more things like these examples.

Another thing I noticed was that, on the one hand I was glad that some people could learn from me more about Germany, but on the other hand, I could see how some prejudices about the US are true or not. For example I knew that the US is known as “the fattest county in the world,” but it wasn’t as bad as I had it expected it to be. And food wise it wasn’t that bad ether. It was good to see that it is always the same with these ideas about other nations, they are usually not half as bad as described.

For me Galway with the school, my friends and my host family has become a second home. I never got homesick and I wouldn’t mind staying longer than I am. But in the same way it will be nice to go back home, where all my other friends and my family are waiting. I’m leaving home to go home. That sounds strange, but it is how I see it. I have won many new friends here and at least with some of them I’ll stay in touch. The only thing I want to do is to encourage everyone when you get the chance, to spend some time in a different country, take it. It is something you will never forget.