Maggie (Without) Borders: My Year in Germany

Guess who's back [back] Back again (it's me) Every year, at least one person finds this blog and then reaches out to me for help with their own application, interview, or program year preparations... and I'm so happy every time that happens!!! I respond to every email that comes at me through my "Contact Me" page, so reach out!! Anyway, I wanted to write this post because I realized that I didn't have anything on here regarding the specifics of the interview. Most of the emails I get are from candidates who have gotten an interview and are curious about the process, so I will answer some of the most common questions about that here.  In the interest of full disclosure and transparency, I do want to mention that I am sitting on an interview panel this year (2022). I have not read or watched any of the interviewer training materials yet, and I will not look at them until this post is published. This post will not be edited or updated in any way after posting, an...

Hello. Me again.  It's February of 2021. I've been back in the U.S. since July 17th, 2018. I never really finished writing about my CBYX experience, so maybe when I find the time, I'll finally finish talking about it. All of the most important stuff is there, anyway, and I can't offer the fresh perspective I once had, but it would be nice to go through my pictures again.  I found myself back on this blog when a potential CBYX participant emailed me and told me that she couldn't find anything about the German-speaking portion of the interview (in case you're wondering, I updated my post about the interview process as a result). I thought it might be interesting to provide a small update on where I'm at now and what I do.  Right After CBYX Following my year abroad, I was so excited to go home. Lots of people asked me, "Don't you want to live there now?" and "Do you see yourself going back to Germany to work?" and my answer is, "No....

I mentioned in a previous post that I would elaborate on what it’s like to be an intern in Germany. Allow me to deliver on that promise. As required by CBYX, I obtained an internship for the second half of my year in Germany (read more about that process here#). I was hired as a research and consulting intern at the Institute for Environmental IT Hamburg GmbH, or ifu. I’m currently in at the end of my third month of my five-month internship, so I feel like I can finally give you a good overview of what it’s like to be a US American intern in a German company. Of course, this pertains only to me—other PPPler have had wildly different experiences, but the only one I can share is mine. To give you an idea of how unique my experience was: my team is full of young people. The whole office is very relaxed, and there’s only about 25 people in ifu total. Going into the intership phase, we were fed stereotypes about German work/office culture (which probably really helped some peopl...

You've probably volunteered in the U.S. before, and in many different ways. US Americans love volunteering, and they make it easy to do. After all, who doesn't love free labor? The Germans, that's who.  Okay so maybe that's dramatic. But! It really is drastically different in the Vaterland. As part of the CBYX program year, we were all required to do 40 hours of Ehrenamt  (volunteer service) during the university phase of the program. This didn't mean "show up and volunteer," this meant find places that accept volunteers, figure out who to contact, schedule an introductory meeting, figure out if there are issues with insurance, then  show up and volunteer. I recall hearing discussions about how difficult it was to find volunteer work, but I figured that there would be plenty of opportunities in Hamburg due to the size of the city. In large part, I was right. My friends and I in Hamburg really had no issues finding places to volunteer--they worked a...

I don't want to put too much emphasis on the Virtual Exchange, but since it's a mandatory part of CBYX now, I'll go ahead and give you as much detail is necessary. The CBYX Virtual Exchange is meant to be a way for us to connect with our German counterparts currently participating in CBYX in the States. Previously, the Virtual Exchange was an optional part of the experience. This year, the 34th year of CBYX, they decided to make it mandatory for all participants. As a part of the Virtual Exchange, we were all told to choose one of three topics based on our personal interests: Free Speech and Debate The Role of the Media in the US Volunteerism We were also all assigned a German partner. We were never really told why  we were assigned our particular partners (other than because we had chosen the same topic), and we only found out how  our partners were chosen at the mid-year seminar. As it turns out, the Cultural Vistas staff went through all 75 Americans and all ...