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Civil engineering major Michael Adelman ’10 (Clarks Summit, Pa.) spent the spring semester studying engineering and German language and culture in Bremen, Germany, with 33 other students. The Lafayette faculty-led program at Jacobs University Bremen (JUB) was headed by Erol Ulucakli, associate professor of mechanical engineering. This is Adelman’s final letter chronicling his experience.
The very end of our semester in Bremen was made a little more difficult by, of all things, sunshine-the cloudy and chilly North German winter had finally given way to warm and sunny days, just in time for finals week. Great-I had almost forgotten what spring was like, and then suddenly the sun comes out and there’s all this work to do.
In the last weeks of the semester, however, somewhere in amongst the work, there were also more sights to be seen. Many of us had added a few new entries to the list of places visited in our lives, including the city of Krakow, Poland, where we went as a group (and which was, I would say, well worth the 13 hour bus ride it took to get there.) I also got the opportunity to visit Germany’s Harz Mountains, as part of a class trip to study earth and environmental sciences in my favorite classroom-the great outdoors. But for me, there was a lot more to being abroad than just the opportunity to visit new places. The cultural experience was also incredible, and I think I am a lot better off for having had it.
For starters, of course, I was really living in Germany-and even if the university itself isn’t strictly German, I still got the chance to meet, talk to, and get to know a number of people here, and through community service and other activities really got to practice the language as well. I’m definitely thankful for these opportunities, and I got a lot more out of being in this country because of them.
I can also thank the truly international student body at Jacobs University for helping me learn a lot more about the world-and not the kind of learning that is done out of a book. Finding friends from all of these different countries helped me better understand and appreciate other cultures, and get a first-person perspective on everything from global issues to daily life in places around the world. But most importantly, studying abroad in an environment like this is a lesson in global awareness of the best kind-that is, being able to meet someone and, instead of judging them by where they may be from or what they may look like or how they may speak, simply getting to know them for who they are as a human being. It comes naturally to so many people at Jacobs, and it is really inspiring to see.
I got to learn about my own culture over there as well, and as much as I missed our weekly Sabbath at Lafayette’s Hillel, I definitely learned a great deal about Judaism while staying in Europe. I helped organize and lead an interfaith Passover Seder at Jacobs, heard stories I remembered from childhood in the Jewish quarter of Krakow, and attended services at a historic synagogue in Berlin. I also had the powerful experience of seeing the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and, later, meeting a survivor of Auschwitz.
All in all, living in another country was incredible in many different ways-and if I could give advice to anyone considering studying abroad, I would say to give it a try. Lafayette offers some great opportunities, and there is no time like the present to see and experience the world.