Time of My Life

By: Cassandra Bass, Foster Undergraduate

So, to introduce myself I’m Cassandra Bass, am studying Marketing, and am in my third year at Foster. Wow, Germany, where to start? I have already been here in Mannheim, Germany for two months and am having the time of my life. Germany is such an amazing country with incredible people and beautiful cities and culture. Coming here to study abroad is probably the best decision I’ve made so far in my college career. Before I arrived I was worried that I might have a difficult time meeting a lot of native Germans, and I might spend the majority of my time with other international students. Nothing against other international students (I’ve met people from all over the world and it is amazing!), but I just really wanted a true German experience. Luckily, I’ve found it very easy to meet Germans and fit in with the culture here.

I think that one of the best choices I made concerning my study abroad program was deciding to attend the Summer Academy here at Mannheim. It’s a month long intensive German seminar before the fall semester starts. It gave me a good chance to familiarize myself with the city, meet many other international students, improve my language skills, and also meet a lot of Germans. I would highly encourage anyone who is considering attending the University of Mannheim to attend the Summer Academy. They offer excursions every weekend to help you get out and see the sights. I went to the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, canoed to Heidelberg, went wine-tasting in the countryside, and went on a brewery tour in Mannheim all in my first month here!

Before I came to Mannheim, my original plan was to live in student housing. At first, when all the housing filled up and I realized I was going to have to find an apartment in Mannheim I was pretty scared. However, I found an apartment where I live with two German students and another exchange student from Australia. In the end, the fact that I wasn’t able to get into student housing was a stroke of extremely good luck. Living with Germans has allowed me the chance to constantly speak German and to see another side of Mannheim that I might not have been introduced to if I hadn’t had many close German friends. On the topic of student housing, if you are considering coming to Mannheim I would really recommend not choosing to live in a dorm. The majority of the dorms are located fairly far from campus and aren’t the cleanest. I would recommend finding an apartment to sublease with German students. It will guarantee you the best cultural experience here in Mannheim.

The city of Mannheim itself is great. It’s about 300,000 people so it’s not the largest city in Germany, but it’s big enough to still offer good nightlife and culture and small enough to navigate easily. The university itself sponsors a lot of the nightlife, which is actually very fun, and thousands of students show up every week to their events. VISUM, a student organization here on campus, also organizes parties and events to help international students meet each other and other German students. They have a buddy program too, which is helpful if you want a German contact immediately upon your arrival in Mannheim to help answer your questions. Overall, German efficiency is everywhere here, making it easy to organize anything having to do with school, living, traveling, etc. Most Germans speak fairly good English so even if you don’t speak German it’s easy to get by. On that subject, you will have to go through some formalities registering as a resident of the city and country through the city hall here in Mannheim. This can be challenging if you don’t speak any German. However, most Germans and other internationals who know German are very friendly and willing to help out!

So I guess I should mention the school itself. The University of Mannheim is known in Europe for being one of the top business schools, and you definitely get the feeling that it is when you are here. If you tell anyone from Germany that you are attending the Uni Mannheim they are always impressed and tell you what good opportunities you will have. So far, I’ve found this to be true in my classes. All of my professors are great and extremely interesting. The registration process is fairly simple. Even if you don’t register for a class and still want to join it, professors are very open to international students just showing up on the first day and signing up there. Well, that’s all I have for now. Until next time, tschüss!