Answers? Questions.

I’ve waited until the last possible moment to write this paper because I’ve been wrestling with the topic and I fear that it is filled with more questions than answers. How did Germany change me? I’ve studied abroad before. I’ve lived with a host family. I’ve had to learn the basics of an entirely new language and social interaction system to get around a country. Public transportation? No biggie. Public health care system? Well, I have never studied the US health care system in great detail and I grew up in a self-proclaimed ‘socialist republic’ and so nothing in the German system surprised me except maybe for the fact of how little Germans exploit it. Veterinary care? Besides the novel idea of having a cow hospital or doing C-sections on 90% of a herd (who knew cows were worth that much?), it all seems very analogous to what I have seen in other developed countries. History? The way Germans are still very much affected by the past shocked me. Did it change me? Do I consider history more important? Not really. I cringe when people use the term ‘nazi’ lightly (as in ‘She’s a spending nazi’) because now I know how immense a negative impact they had on an entire country (subsequent generations included.) I don’t get into arguments over it, though. How could somebody who hasn’t been there to experience it themselves ever understand? However, I cannot say that I have come away without learning anything about myself or have not changed in any way. How to say in concrete words what is only a vague, shadowy feeling?

Maybe the best thing to do is consider the two events that shocked me about myself: the cardiac ICU in Bonn and the cow surgery in Hanover. In the former, as all of you know, I fainted. In the latter, as probably most of you don’t know, I started to feel faint and luckily we left as a group (with me out the door first if you didn’t notice) before I lost it. I have participated in sheep surgeries before! Blood, while not my favorite dinner subject (that would be other aspects of veterinary medicine, much to the dismay of my more sensitive roommates), has always been something that I get queasy over, but not to the point of completely losing control. Was I becoming overly sensitized? Could I handle vet school or would I pass out at the sight of blood? The thought that for the last four years I had been pursuing the wrong degree raced through my head and chilled me to my marrow.

When I got back to the USA, I found myself graduated and without a job. Before going to Germany I had already ruled out immediately entering veterinary school on the basis of money. I want to go abroad to get my DVM (or equivalent) and everywhere I looked it wasathan too expensive. That left me with finding a job to begin paying back my student loans. The first place that I applied to was a veterinary hospital in New Waverly where I hoped to get on-the-job experience and be paid for it. However, there was a lingering nervousness that I might not be up to the task of taking care of sick animals. When I was offered a position in a research company in the Woodlands, I jumped on the opportunity. Would I have if I had not had those experiences in Germany? Probably. I love working in a lab and this company is renowned for treating its employees especially well. Will I go on to get my DVM? That is still up in the air. I do believe that my resolve to become a veterinarian was shaken by my experiences in Germany. I am considering other career options, such as a masters and then Ph.D. in a research field, more carefully. The one thing that I am sure about is that I am very glad that I went to Germany and I would pay for it all over again if I had the chance to go back and re-do that summer.