The Best Choice in My Life

Hello, my name is Marta, I am 19 years old and I am from Ukraine. This is my first experience studying abroad. When I was accepted at Hochschule Koblenz, I was very happy and ambitious about my first time studying abroad. At first, I was a little upset that this is a small town and the campus itself is not very big, because it is the absolute opposite of my university at home. Later, I felt all the advantages of Remagen, it is an atmospheric town with a wonderful embankment, everything is within walking distance, and everything necessary for young people is present. The transport options are also great; you can reach Bonn, Cologne, and even Dusseldorf by direct trains. Thanks to this, exploring Germany is much easier, and finding a place to have fun with friends is not difficult. 

The compactness of the campus helps to find new friends, because you constantly cross paths and often have the same subjects. I met friends from all over the world here, even taking into account my fear of speaking English, because I studied here in Germany, it didn't stop me. And even more than that, native speakers such as students from Australia or the USA have become my best friends. The main thing is not to be afraid of new things or difficulties, because that's what we come for, to overcome them and return home a completely different person. 

Personally, I changed my thinking and vision of the world after this semester, by communicating with such different people who have different traditions and lifestyles and adopting some of them for myself. I have also become more relaxed – of course, sometimes it is still scary to express my opinion because of the fear of making a mistake or not being understood, but every day I see my progress and understand that everyone does not care about your grammatical mistakes, and they support you on the contrary. I was also reassured that most of the other students were older than me by 3, 4, or even 6 years.  

In summary, it was the best decision in my life to come here. For extroverts, it will be a paradise where you will meet new interesting people every day, and for introverts, it will be a challenge that will change you for the better.