Next Steps & Moving Forward

I guess this final post has been very hard for me to write. I know it's due. I know I need to write something down, but the words and emotions I feel right now are difficult to express and ,at this point, still jumbled in my head.

But, I love Germany. I love the culture, the people, and the little stands on the side of the streets that served the best ice cream for under a dollar. I miss watching the Rhine flow by and playing with my host family's German Shepard whenever I came home from school. I miss living there so much, but I'm conflicted at this point.

And I think my conflicts stem from what I want to do after undergraduate and my prospects of being a graduate student. I want to attend graduate school in Germany, but I also don't want to potentially destroy my academic/research career for going. Because in graduate school it's all about who you work under and what connections you can make with the scientific community, and I feel like I must make a final decision whether I want to stay in Germany or stay in the United States and establish my career at whichever I decide to choose.

And to be honest, I'm more on the side of staying in Germany. Like yes, there wouldn't be a language barrier in the United States, but most of the research I would like to do is actually in the Netherlands or in different parts of Germany. So, I feel like I'm at a large crossroad in my life, and I'm not so sure what to do. I'm still going to apply to American graduate schools, NSF scholarship, and any fellowship that I could possibly get, but if by the magical possibility I can get accepted to a school in Germany and have the funds to go, I would probably take the offer in an instant.