I studied abroad from January to March 2020. I was a part of a program that allowed me to go to 3 locations, each for 6 weeks each, and take two classes at each location. Starting in January, I went to Sydney, Australia, where I learned about intercultural communications and aboriginal history.
Then in mid-February, I went to Berlin, Germany, and studied WWII history and childhood psychology. I really enjoyed learning about the Holocaust memorials around Berlin, since it is a very fine line to walk to acknowledge the horrors that happened yet not give power to the Nazi ideologies. I plan on going back to Berlin some day, and potentially even building a life there. My entire study abroad program shutdown in the final two weeks of the German block due to the ever-changing COVID-19 Pandemic, and the program announced that we have a week until our housing would be taken away. Leading up to this announcement, I was very intimidated, since other schools were pulling their students, and one-by-one my friends were leaving on the quickest plane to head back to America.
In my final days, there were only fifteen other students that were around, Berlin’s largest attractions were barren, and I remember feeling that although my time there is coming to a close faster than I had hoped, I was still there, and I was going to squeeze every last drop of the experience out that I could. Even though, my program ended early, and I didn’t get to do everything I wanted, I am grateful to have done it. I have a new-found sense of “life is what you make of it, so live it up while you can.” I hopped on a flight to go home and finished up my Berlin classes online (Note: online study abroad classes are the worst classes I’ll ever take). Since I didn’t need the credit for my final location, London, I dropped them and had an extra month to enjoy my quarantine summer at home with my best friend.
