First of all, I have to admit that this is not the first time I have visited the United States. So there have been previous occasions on which I could learn that certain stereotypes about America that are commonplace in Europe are not true at all. Unfortunately, cherishing one’s prejudices usually comes with unwillingness to put them to the test. And as America offers such a variety of people, attitudes, and opinions, everyone can find their initial ideas proved right and wrong at the same time.
Over time, I have come to the conclusion that the best way to get to know a place really well is to spend a considerable period of time there. That turned out to be the best thing both when I worked in Turkey for half a year in 2002-03, and when I spent half a year in New Zealand in 2003-04. It comes naturally that, being a foreigner in a place, it is easy to meet other foreigners. And of course, it is their experiences that serve as a blueprint for one's own start into a new adventure.
Throughout the years, many students from Kiel, Germany, participated in the exchange program with the U of I, and in most years, at least one of them has lived in the Cosmopolitan Club. They all liked and recommended the place, so what was the natural thing to do was to apply for a room there. And this, again, would involve getting into contact not only with local people, but with a variety of people from very different places.
With the exception of Australia, there are inhabitants from all continents at Cosmo currently, which involves a variety of ideas, lifestyles, foods, and opinions. And—interestingly enough—everyone is getting along well with everyone else, in sharing the experience of studying in the United States as well as getting first-hand information about various places in the world from people who actually live there.
As for the places that are currently not covered by the inhabitants of Cosmo, the Thursday Night Coffee Hours proved to be an excellent way to learn more about them. German Night at the beginning of the Semester came at the right time to deal with the little remainder of homesickness that would soon make room for lots of new impressions, both of America and the variety of the UIUC campus.
It is often recommended that while studying abroad, students should pick at least one course that they would usually not take at home, as it might not be part of their regular studies. I decided to go for Turkish, as, though I have spent several months in Turkey, everyday office life there involved either English or German, which made things easier for me and helped to get some work done, but did not really contribute much to my command of the language.
So in order to make up for that, I decided to pick one of the excellent language courses, where I am able to study in a small group of only eight students and acquire some language skills that go beyond those you would normally expect to achieve during a 10-months stay in the United States.
But the Cosmopolitan Coffee Hours not only help one to learn more about the world by seeing presentations about the countries, but also by getting one in contact with a lot of different people. Many of the 150 to 200 visitors at Coffee Hours are international students themselves, and so this helps to get in contact with even more people from all parts of the world. Fortunately, there is a considerable number of Americans also attending the events at Cosmo, so this helps to meet locals as well.
Still, most of the international students attend meetings that are set up by internationals’ organizations and make friends with internationals predominantly. This has been an experience shared by a number of internationals coming to Champaign, so I suppose that might be a feature of the stay abroad. It has helped me, though, to get in contact with some Campus organizations as well as going to a local church, as– naturally–there are a lot more people from the United States there than in the internationals’ groups.
Despite many interesting experiences besides studying, such as weekend trips to Chicago, even accompanied by locals and therefore getting first-hand information or even a weekend trip to Canada, the main part of the stay here in Champaign is of course represented by the courses at the university.
For me, this was the last chance to come to America before my graduation at home. I will finish my diploma in Economics (comparable to Master’s Degree) next Fall, so I decided to use my time at the U of I to look at some things from a different perspective, to revise things that will be important, to take a glance at what is interesting but unfortunately not part of my studies, and to get some credits for courses that I still need to take in order to be able to start writing my thesis next fall.
It turned out that the way of studying is somewhat different from the approach I was used to. Most of the courses involve a lot more homework, quizzes, and exams than courses at my home university would. However, this helps significantly to deal with the topics of the lecture in more depth than just going over a topic and proving one’s skills in one final exam.
The number of courses is also lower than what I was used to. Taking five courses turned out to be rather challenging, but at the same time, I was impressed to see that the subjects were all covered in depth and that applied tasks would come up very soon in the semester.
Even though I try to have a time management plan that would prevent me from sharing an apparently very common fate at the university, namely, to have to work all night before some important homework is due or some important midterm is scheduled, it has sometimes been necessary to reject some of the friendly invitations of the friends I have made here in the meantime.
Still, I am confident that I have found a reasonable work-life balance here, and I have to admit that I truly enjoy both of it: studying interesting subjects at a first-class university and gathering experiences with locals and internationals in its vibrant campus life.
Cosmo Club President Daniela (Germany) with housemates Markus (Germany) and Inaki (Argentina) at the new international student welcome reception in August 2007.