My trip to Germany was… For me to be able to complete that sentence and not have a ridiculously big run on sentence, would be impossible. When people have asked me what I thought about the trip I never give them an answer I just start describing program excursions and discussions with Dr. Wasser. This is because the study abroad program wasn’t just a class. It was a total immersion experience where we would read something in the book or see it in our lecture and the next day we were right there where history was made. In that atmosphere the learning that was going on was not the least bit bland. There was always something to do. I guess I’ll just let you know about some of my favorite program excursions and how I’ve changed my perceptions because of them.
One of the most exciting days in the trip was the very first day. Just realizing and soaking in the ambience when we walked through the altstadt that night was so great. That night’s feeling was kept in tune with the rest of my experience in that the atmosphere at Germans restaurants is “stay and have some more”. I never felt rushed and could actually sit and enjoy a big meal or just drinks. Even in the United States if young adults around my age or younger go into a restaurant just for drinks they waiters always rush you your bill. Having been a waiter my self I learned that if you had the bill ready and had a high turnover rate of “clients” then you were being a good waiter. So my perceptions about Germany long before I signed up for this program were that they were very ordered, mechanical and systematic and that even a leisure activity like eating out would be streamlined into efficiency. Now it was true that I did see this idea of “ordenum muss sein” (“order must be”, I think), but not when it came to leisure. Now of course a good German still doesn’t stay at the bar all night and like a rampant drunken fool.
Some more great deal of information that I learned was into the Nazi ideology. When I studied World War 2 in grade school all we ever learned was that you better not be racist cause other people might catch on to your idea and that’s basically what the holocaust was. Well from the lectures I did see some of that evidence in that almost every Nazi in an officer position or doctor position claimed that they were just following orders from the generals and administrators. This was a valid argument but I still felt that there was more to the holocaust than this. At the Max Planck institute excursion the historian made it very clear that Germany was the beacon of science at the time, but even the beacon of science and technology was perverted. He made a point of scientist who had gathered data and been told by colleagues that this idea of “rassenhygiene” was completely false and had no empirical data. Well going along with this Darwinian idea in order to not lose any credit, these German scientists kept turning out manufactured evidence supporting ideas like “all doctors are Jewish” and “the Jewish people causing sickness to the community’s health”. Some of these German scientist, (I’m excluding the insane ones) really just wanted to be the best in their field and get ahead and this was the way to do it. This is still a quality that holds true for modern Germans.
Overall my trip really served to clear up many misconceptions I had about Germany and its past. Now with a more expanded world view I hope to take this knowledge and apply it to my future in medicine, since everyday medicine has to become more global in treating diseases and collaborating international research.
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