Back to the Real Life in the US...Unfortunately

To be honest, I didn't have much of a chance to adjust being back in the United States before my life started to get incredibly busy as normal. The three days that I had before school started went by way to fast, though I was proud of myself for staying up all day when I returned home, which helped me avoid jetlag. I immediately had a ton of things to do to get ready for school and I feel like my life hasn't slowed down at all since I've been back. I'm a co-chair in Impact, working as a Teacher's Assistant at Becky Gate's Children's Center, taking a full load of classes, studying for the MCAT, and working on internship and medical school applications....talk about hitting the real world of school fast and hard. Since I have been so busy and haven't had much time to really slow down and think about much besides school and everything else that I have going on, I feel like I did not really suffer from reverse culture shock. Granted, there were several things that I had to readjust to back home, but overall I feel like I handled the transition of life back in the United States very well, I just wish I had more time to soak in everything that I had learned and seen while I was abroad before having to dive back into school.

At the end of the program I have to honestly say that I was very ready to go back home. I had missed my family, friends, and boyfriend a great deal and I was very much looking forward to seeing them. However, I was also slightly sad to be going home. There is still so much that I want to see in Europe and I know that it will be awhile before I have an opportunity to go back because of financial reasons. I remember that it was really weird riding in a taxi to the airport because I had not been in a vehicle in a long time and I was so used to subways and trains. I loved the public transportation system in Europe and that has definitely been something that I have missed since I’ve been back home. It was very clean and nice and extremely convenient. I loved that everything was very prompt there also (unlike our Aggie bus system at times). As soon as I left Vienna, I knew that there were several things that I would miss about Europe. One of the biggest things that I miss is seeing many incredibly beautiful and old, historical buildings everywhere I go. Everything is so new and plain here in America, particularly in College Station. I still think there are many pretty areas of the country, both that I have visited and have just heard about, but I also think that many of them are nothing in comparison to the things while I was in Europe, both architecturally and just the land and cities in general. I also really miss being able to walk around easily in all of the cities. I know there are several cities that are walker-friendly in America also, but College Station is not really one of those cities. People give you funny looks or just don’t really expect to see anyone walking around besides on campus. In Europe I loved being outside all the time (well, most of the time, when I wasn’t completely frozen) and just being able to enjoy the scenery and fresh air as we walked around; I felt like there was always something to see. I definitely dreaded having to make the three hour drive to College Station soon after I returned and I like driving less than I used to before I went to Europe. I also noticed that when I came back to A&M I did not mind walking around campus nearly as much as I had before I went to Germany. Nothing is as far as the walks that we took around the cities in Germany and I just enjoy it much more than I used to, as lame as that may sound. I also miss our group that went to Europe too. It was very weird not spending every hour of the day with these 14 people when I came back home. I’m very glad for the friendships I made while on the trip and I hope that we continue to stay in touch. I also really miss the people that I met on the trip, Steffi and Olaf, and I am very appreciative of everything that they did for us. It made the experience so much better than it could have been by having guides that were so helpful and fun to spend time with.

There were several things that I was looking forward to in the United States, most of which are trivial, but still things that I was excited about. Number one is definitely seeing my family, boyfriend and his family, and my friends. It was a great experience travelling to Europe with people that I did not know previously and making friends and I wouldn’t change that for anything because I love meeting new people. However, next time I travel to Europe I would like to go with close friends or family. I was definitely very excited by the fact that I would get free refills (and unlimited refills) the next time I went out to eat at a restaurant. I think I let myself near dehydration several times throughout the trip because I did not want to spend my money on more drinks. I am so used to drinking much more water than I did on the trip so I was also very excited that water is free at restaurants here. I had always wanted to spend time where it snowed a lot because I had never gotten the opportunity to do so, but after three weeks I was ready to be somewhere that had no snow and no slush to walk through everywhere I went. I was very excited to sleep in my own bed because the hotel beds had been killing my back (though I am very excited about this after any trip I return from.) Another trivial thing that I was happy about was free bathrooms, though I have definitely missed the cleanliness of the bathrooms in Europe, it is nice to not have to worry about having a supply of change. Being able to understand everything that is being said around me is also nice, though I do enjoy listening to people speaking other languages, so I enjoyed being exposed to this on a daily basis in Germany and Austria. I am also a very picky eater and although the food turned out to be better than I had expected, I was ready to come home and eat Tex-Mex and cheeseburgers!

Absolutely incredible! That is the only way that I can describe my overall experience in the study abroad program. It was easily one of the best experiences of my life and I can’t think of a way that I would’ve preferred to spend my winter break. I had fairly high expectations for the program, in terms of what we would be able to see and do while abroad though I wasn’t sure exactly what it would be like. The study abroad experience far surpassed my expectations. I learned so much and saw more fascinating things than I can remember off the top of my head. The only complaint that I had during the trip was the cold weather, but that was because I had never been exposed to it for an extended period of time. I am glad that I can now say I have experienced what it’s like to be somewhere that has a real winter though. I am also very glad that my view of Germany just as the place where Nazis persecuted Jews, which I know is a very naive view of Germany, has been completely changed. I am glad to know much more about the country that my family came from and just to have more knowledge of the world in general. The one thing that I know for sure is that I would absolutely love to go back to Europe in the future as soon as I have money to do so. I have always wanted to travel around the United States and Europe, but now my desire to travel is stronger than ever. I realize just how much there is to see in the world and how little I know about places other than where I live. Being in Europe was definitely an eye-opening experience, mostly just by being submerged in a culture much different, yet very similar in certain ways, to our culture. I never knew that I would enjoy learning about other cultures and lifestyles and just experiencing all of those things for myself as much as I did. I have always been open-minded, but the study abroad experience made me appreciate and understand other cultures better than I had before. Learning about the medical system in Europe was particularly interesting to me since the socialized medical system had never been fully explained to me and I had never taken the time to learn about it. This opened my eyes to other ways of thinking also and taught me not to be afraid of change that may occur in our country. I have learned to embrace other cultures and other perspectives because of my experiences abroad. I feel like I have a much closer relationship to the world, if this makes any sense at all. I know that we only travelled to four countries during the three weeks and that there is so much of the world that I still have left to see, but I was exposed to more in these three weeks than I ever had been on trips that I have taken before. My mission trip to Mexico a few years ago was a huge eye-opening experience because I was exposed to the deep poverty that people lived in there, but the study abroad program was a different kind of eye-opening experience for me--just having the chance to see how people in other first world countries spend their everyday lives and learning about their way of doing things. It was just a really neat experience for me and I had gone in with an expectation of just seeing historical sites and learning a lot about medicine, but I came back with so much more than that—having experienced a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be exposed to other cultures in a unique way and having a new perspective on a variety of things.

I have known since high school that I want to go to medical school and become a pediatrician. However, I have also had my doubts along the way, especially when people question whether I really want to go through that much school and spend time paying off school debts after graduating. After returning from abroad, all of these doubts have been removed. I now am certain that I want to go to medical school and that it will be worth the time and effort that I put into it. There is not one particular part of the study abroad experience that made me realize this, but a combination of several things that we saw and did while we were there. The open heart surgery in which the patient underwent quadruple bypass and a mitral valve replacement, the wide range of fascinating exhibits in the Deutsches Hygiene Museum, the many wax models at the Medical History Museum at the Josephinum, learning about the history of medicine in Germany and Vienna from Dr. Wasser, the lectures given by the doctors at the Heart and Diabetes Clinic in Bad Oeynhausen and the artificial hearts that we had the opportunity to see and learn about, were all highlights of the trip and definitely impacted my view of my chosen profession, but the entire trip in general had an impact on me. There was never a dull moment for me when we were visiting these and other places and learning about the history of medicine. I was absolutely fascinated by everything and felt like I could devote entire days to the museums we went to and would not be bored at all. The study abroad program also gave me a more open perspective on working as a doctor abroad and a desire to go on medical mission trips. I know we didn’t really discuss this or anything on the trip, but I never had an interest in working in the medical field anywhere but in the United States until going to Germany and Austria.

The two major things that I got out of the study abroad experience were a desire to travel to Europe and just around the world in general and a higher level of confidence that I want to pursue a career as a physician, both of which I am very happy about. I also feel much more prepared to travel in Europe than I did before and I have confidence that I would be able to survive on a trip just fine if I went with a few friends or family who had no clue what they were doing. The experience was absolutely amazing and I would go back to Germany, Austria, or almost any other place in Europe in a heartbeat if I were given the opportunity to do so.