At first glance, my apartment bedroom looks just like any other college student’s room. With my usual pictures of friends and tapestry depicting the world, I would think I was back home in Wisconsin or studying in Iowa if it weren’t for the mountains outside and constant rumble of trains from the station just down the road. 

It isn’t until you look a bit closer that you notice the note cards covering my walls, the dictionaries scattered around and the books in various languages tucked onto shelves that you start to see the story of someone far from home. 

One of my first days here, an orientation leader told my group that we would be “constantly stretching ourselves” as international students. We would be pushing ourselves beyond our limits and working hard at tasks that would usually come effortlessly, such as grocery shopping. 

I thought that, because of my previous German experience, I would have no problem fitting in or adapting here; however, just days into my journey I realized the struggle I would be facing daily. I started to notice how difficult things as simple as shopping had become as I struggled to ask for certain items in the store or failed to understand the cashier’s questions. 

I expected learning the language to be easy, as I was constantly going to be surrounded by people speaking it. I didn’t realize the extra amount of effort that would have to go into perfecting my German, but once I began to go through the extra steps, I quickly found myself improving day by day.

My walls are now covered in notecards reminding me of German sentence structure, cases, word gender and much more and serve as a reminder of how far my language skills have come and how much more I have to learn. Despite the constant effort and occasional struggle of living abroad and learning a second language, I could not be more grateful for my time here. Being able to hold a conversation in a language other my own has become one of the most rewarding parts of every day. 

— Shannon Rabotski is a 2016 graduate of Monroe High School and is a junior at Drake University. She is spending the year studying abroad in Tubingen, Germany. She can be reached at shannon.rabotski@drake.edu.