Is exchange program worth it?

I guess it all led back to my sister, Sharyn. Sharyn is 9 years older than me. She has been excellent in her schoolwork and even studied in the States for college with a full scholarship. In her junior year, my sister went to Kyoto, Japan to exchange for an year. She has always been fascinated with Japanese culture and learned Japanese well ever since junior high school. Therefore, this year in Japan was proven to be a dream come true for her as she enjoyed the atmosphere during exchange. I suppose this triggers my inner motive to go on exchange now.

Although going abroad seems very interesting, I sometimes think about the cons of going on exchange. I would miss my senior year in Taiwan, not able to attend the graduation ceremony, and also taking the tests for graduate schools in Taiwan. Most important of all, going away for a year means one year away from my home and my family. I guess I will miss them very much during the year in Germany. Hopefully, I think I can manage it and I'll be sure to make it a better and warmer memory for myself.

Application for CBS

I received CBS's email on the information of international student's application last Thursday. The school officials told us that we need to fill out the application form and submit it by May 15th, 2014. The package came in with a fact sheet, application form and a course registration form.

We are required to select the courses when we send in the application and we are required to select at least 18 ECTS. I am interested in "Comparative international management", "International marketing" and "Intercultural management." Also, I want to study "Hotel event and congress management", "Advanced tourism foundation" and "Major tourism transportation service provider." In addition, I will take German language courses to enhance my German ability, too.

The fall semester starts on September 1st, 2014 and ends on December 19th, 2014. It is consisted of 12 weeks of lecture and 2 weeks of exams. Right now my plan is to leave Taiwan in the end of July, stay at my sister's place in Copenhagen, Denmark for a few weeks, travel around a bit and maybe study in a German language school. Then, be ready for the new semester and attend orientation at the end of August.

I will be preparing all the forms in a few weeks and also have to apply for German visas. I heard that the process is very complicated so I hope I can make it through without too many trouble.

My Partner

For this exchange program, I was appointed to study at Cologne Business School (CBS) in Cologne, Germany. I wasn't the only student from NCCU to exchange at CBS. A sophomore majoring in Diplomacy just like me, named Judy Chou, was also exchanging at CBS, too. We have never met before, but because of this, we got together and did some research about CBS and the application procedures. It turned out that Judy is a very easygoing girl and we both like to travel. However, she is just exchanging for the fall semester, so we will not be able to spend the entire year in Germany together.

We have lots of mutual friends and it turned out that we had a lot of classes together this semester in NCCU. It was very surprising since I had probably saw her many times before I finally realized that she was in the same class as I was. It was a great pleasure meeting Judy and I hope I can have a satisfying time in Germany with her during our exchange session. I guess in the near future, the two of us will be traveling in Europe together and have a wonderful time.

A Dream Come True

This is my first ever post on this brand new class. I missed the first class of this semester so I also missed the 15-minute challenge in class. Therefore, this post might not be as good as it can be, but I will definitely do my best to make it better.

I named my blog "All About Germany" because in a few months, I will be studying abroad in Cologne, Germany as an exchange student for my entire senior year. This is basically a dream-come-true for me because I had made up my mind before I entered college to go on an exchange program during college. I learned German in the first two years of college and I look forward to improving my German language skills during the one-year-stay in Cologne, Germany.

This is a great experience and I have set up several goals to achieve for this year. First, I want to take the German languages test before I leave Germany to see how well I have learned German. Second, I want to travel around Europe and pay close attention to the neatly-organized public transportation system because I  am very interested in public transportation system such as train and bus systems. Third, I would like to think about my future after graduation since I haven't make up my mind yet about my future career, I hope I can come up with a future plan during my stay in Germany.

There are so many things that I hope to do when I am in Germany. This will be an unforgettable experience for me and I hope I will not regret my choice of exchanging in another country. The following posts on this blog will be related to Germany, and will also help me to prepare for my journey ahead.