I had my first day of orientation today. Overall, the program so far feels very haphazard. We had a packed orientation schedule that consistently went over time. We were given information incredibly late. There was an incredible amount of repetition in the information we were hearing (though I suppose I understand this). I have hopes for tomorrow, however, because we are visiting the Department of State.

Today, we sat in a circle and introduced ourselves. We have a roll call system where each of the 25 of us is assigned a number. When Carrie calls out, “Sind wir alles da?” (Are we all here), then Jordan Allen, whose number is 1, calls out “eins!” From there, the rest of us call out our number in German. It feels vaguely juvenile but I understand it. It’s much easier than taking attendance the way they would in school. 13 in German is “dreizehn,” which has two pronunciations: one with the rolled “r,” and one with the guttural “r.” My guttural “r” is still very French sounding, so I’ve been sticking to the rolled “r” for now, although German teachers have told me that it makes me sound more American in some regions of Germany. The last thing I want is for a German to switch to English because of a small pronunciation or grammar mistake, which apparently is very common!

We listened to two alumni speak about their experiences with the program. The first component is the language school. Generally from 8 am to 1 pm, it is packed with activities. Rather than take tests or memorize vocabulary lists, we will have more hands-on experience. One of the alumni recounted an experience when one of the lessons was on ordering food at a restaurant. Instead of giving them a list of phrases to memorize, he merely took the class out to order ice cream at a store. This is an interesting method because I haven’t really done anything like it before, mainly because I like to be overprepared for everything. However, I think small trips like these (and the other excursions we will take) will be important because it’ll teach me to thrive on underpreparation.

Last modified on 2024-07-31