Maggie (Without) Borders: My Year in Germany

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 ...

In attempting to begin this post, I realized that I have entirely neglected to write about the 'Virtual Exchange' in which we are required to take part... I'll get on that, but for now, just know that we were all assigned a partner as a part of this Virtual Exchange, and that our partners were our German counterparts currently taking part in CBYX in the US. --- A couple months back, I got a message from my Virtual Exchange partner, Giovanna, that she would be coming back to the US before the program was set to end. She had a really rough go of it in the US, and decided that it would be wisest for her to come home early and continue to pursue her life and career in Germany. Being the lovely, generous person that she is, Giovanna invited me to come visit her in her hometown, Wacken, upon her return. She told me that there was going to be a music festival in town, and that I was invited to join her.  I'll admit, I was a little hesitant. After all, I had only be...

From the moment you hear that you’ve been accepted into PPP, you start thinking about the internship phase of the program. This is necessary for a couple reasons:          If you manage to secure an internship before a specific date (May 30, in my case), the city in which you got your internship will be your final placement           They tell you from the very start that you should look for internships ASAP The internship phase is the longest phase of the program, as well as the part that requires the most work from you. Everyone knows that obtaining an internship in the US is hard enough as it is--there's resumes to tailor, cover letters to write, cold emails to send, letters of rec to request, networks to build... and that's all done in English. If internship searches seem daunting in your native language, just wait until you've got to do it all in German.  For me, that really was the most difficult part of t...

As I mentioned in the post about my birthday, my dad came to visit me! I was so happy that he was able to make it across the Atlantic to see me. We decided that we'd make the most of his visit here by going on a short trip somewhere else. He suggested Brügge (Bruges), Belgium, and I said, "yeah sure." We decided to take the train all the way there so that we'd have the chance to stop in Cologne. My dad had never seen the Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral), but really wanted to. I figured this was pretty easy to accomplish, since the Dom is literally right outside the Cologne Hauptbahnhof. Our travels to Bruges went pretty smoothly. My dad got to see the Dom, we got a quick peek at Brussels, and then scooted on over to Bruges. Our layover in Brussels. Because if you aren't eating fries and drinking Stella, are you even in Belgium? When we got to Bruges, it was a little cold, but fairly sunny. We walked from the train station to our hotel in the old city cent...

This post is gonna be another one about how lucky I am so buckle in, y'all. So anyway, on March 15, 2018, I turned 22. Hooray! But that's not important. What is important is that my birthday was another reminder of how much I am loved. And in the midst of a cold, stupid, stressful March, I needed that. It started with my dad coming to visit (I will elaborate more on this later). It was really, really good to see him, and he bought me a wool jacket as a birthday gift! LOOK:  So hip! So trendy! Very warm! Now, of course I know that my dad loves me. His visit was expected, though. What I didn't expect was walking down to breakfast on my birthday and seeing this: 😍 Directly translated: "Heartfelt good wishes!" Basically, "Congrats!" Before I could even get out "Dankeschön" my host parents busted out into the Happy Birthday song in German and English. It was 10000% the cutest thing ever. I mean, I suspected that my host pa...

I just realized that I forgot to post about this trip back in January, so allow me to make amends now! So my boyfriend, Patrick, came to visit me in January. Being that we both love mountains and snowboarding (though he is, admittedly way better  than I am at it), we decided that his visit would be a prime opportunity for us both to see the Alps for the first time. We decided to head down to a town called Garmisch-Partenkirchen to experience the tallest mountain in the German Alps, the Zugspitze.  Garmisch-Partenkirchen is, as you might expect, waaaaay south in Bayern, or Bavaria, as you probably know it. It's pretty much in Austria. In fact, it's so close to Austria that one of the ski passes you can purchase in Garmisch allows you to ski on some of the Austrian Alps nearby.  Waaaaaaaaaaaasy down there. One of the interesting things about Garmisch-Partenkirchen is that, until 1935, Garmisch and Partenkirchen were separate towns. Hitler essentialy forc...

Last week, on Monday, February 5th, 2018, the Berlin Wall had officially been down as long as it had stood. The wall was up for 28 years, 2 months, and 27 days from 1961-1989. For 28 years, 2 months, and 27 days, Berlin was divided; split between competing ideologies and warring countries with brick and mortar. Streets were interrupted, families were split, communities were destroyed. With a wall. I have realized through my college education that US Americans don't actually learn all that much about the walls that divided what were once the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (BRD) and the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) . In my primary education, I learned about WWII (often) and you can bet that I studied the Holocaust multiple times over. Don't misunderstand me: it is incredibly important to learn about these things--but after that, we learned that there was a wall, and that was it. We didn't learn the unbelievable speed with which it was erected and then steadily ex...