Current beliefs towards travel:

I love traveling and I always have over my whole life. Both of my parents were the same way, they loved to travel and they made sure that both me and my brother had the same feelings for taking trips and seeing other parts of the world. So as someone who believes that a trip or traveling somewhere is worth more than any material goods you could buy, I am having an amazing time in this program. I have been to Europe once before for a brief tour, and I remembered Berlin and Munich being my favorite stops on the way. As soon as I began to look into the IIP program and saw Berlin, I knew I had to come back. As far as other personal reasons, I have also been taking German classes at Pitt so I felt that this would be the location that I would be the best prepared for.

As far as what I knew about the culture here, be it socially or professionally, was limited. I had the certain stereotypes in my head about German culture, but other than that I was quite uninformed. I am glad that I came into this trip with no real premonitions, because I am learning so much about the general culture here and it is so different from the US– in a great way!