My Experience Of Participation In International Education Week In The United States

Spending a year in the United States is the best decision I have ever made. It is now over 100 days ago that I left my home country Germany – I had no idea what to expect from the United States, but only good things have happened since I am here!

In the second Week of November, I got the opportunity to participate in the International Education Week and to tell and show people from my community my country! Throughout the week I gave three presentations – one at my high school, one at my host sisters middle school and one in the retirement home in my city! Giving those presentations was literally the best thing I have done in the US so far – smiling children of every age and happy elderly people in the retirement home!

I’m in the United States with a scholarship program called CBYX (Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange) and when I gave the presentation at my high school I talked about the program and told my classmates that they could go to Germany with that program. After my presentation and even days after that, many students came to me and asked me about it, and I was absolutely happy to answer all their questions. Some of them are interested in going to Germany as an exchange student next year or the following years! That was one of the best moments – knowing that I made them think about new opportunities!

When I went to give my presentation in the retirement home everything was slightly different. I didn’t know the people there, and I also didn’t know if they were even interested in learning about Germany. I baked German bread as an “icebreaker” to start my presentation. Many of the elderly people loved that and when I started talking about my country they were just staring at me and they started listening closely. After that, they asked so many questions that I spent almost two hours with them to answer all of them Especially older people need attention in the last years of their life, and I’m glad that I spent some time with them talking about a topic both sides were interested in.

Many of them asked about the Berlin Wall, and some of them even knew some words of German what absolutely amazed me! Some of them talked to me about their experiences when they once went to Germany or other European countries and what they learned overseas. I loved talking to them and answering all their questions. I hope that I made their day a little better and made some of them think about “good old times”.

I am glad that I got the opportunity to participate in International Education Week and I would love to do it again – you open up so many opportunities for your host community and it is a good way to give something back to them.