From Bangkok/Thailand to Koblenz

For the last semester for my bachelor's degree, I have an opportunity to choose an exchange program for one whole semester. In my department, it was recommended to come to Germany since it is known for engineering and technology, and all past seniors also came here. To be honest, I have absolutely no clue about this country, but I still decided to do an exchange semester at Hochschule Koblenz.

Before getting to know about my life, I wanted to mention this, I came to Germany since the beginning of March. It’s supposed to be “Summer Semester” during the time I stay here, but it was only 4 degrees Celsius when I arrived! Being in a country where the average temperature is above 30 degrees Celsius for my whole life, this is insane, yet I managed to get through it.

The reason I decided to come to Germany, of course it’s a cliché, is to gain new experiences and explore the world. One of the things I’m little scared is about making friends because I’m an introvert and not good at starting a conversation. However, Hochschule Koblenz have a buddy program where an international student will have a German buddy, so they can help you if you have any problems. Not only that, we also get to meet other international students and did many activities together. For studying, though I only studied one course and a German language course, it was not that easy. There are different learning contents and the strategies they use, so I must adapt to the knowledge I’ve learned before. Also, German language course, can’t go on without talking about this. When you come to Deutschland, you must speak Deutsch! It is considered as one of the “very hard” language to learn for me. It was hard to remember the vocabularies and understand the sentence structure. However, the professor and classmate were nice to me.

Apart of student life in Hochschule, I also applied for a part time job at restaurants called “Tamrap Thai” and “Deutschie”. It does not only give me a new experience, but also help me with my German language skill. I was assigned to only serve the food and drinks, and at first, when customers said something to me in German, I was startled and need help immediately. As time passed, I slowly learned frequently used words in the restaurant and be able to understand customers sometimes. For those we get to read until here, I hope you visit Tamrap Thai and Deutschie restaurant once!

Last but not least, one of my favorite parts of this exchange semester is travelling. Since Germany is quite in the center of Europe, I had an opportunity to visit other countries. I got to explore many countries that I wanted to go and also those that never crossed my mind.

After all, the decision to come here for exchange semester was unforgettable and worth it. The opportunity to explore another side of the world, gain new experiences, made new friends, and learn new things was totally beyond my expectation. I am grateful to be given this opportunity and would like to recommend it to the juniors.