Germany: Alan Hung

Program: University of Hohenheim Exchange, Spring

Alan’s Majors: Biochemistry and Philosophy

How did your identities impact your experience?

Living in a city with few minority ethnicities may initially feel like an issue or create feelings of being an outcast, but this tends to be self-imposed so don’t worry too much about how much you fit in the culture/appearance. Many people actually want to learn about other cultures and are very open to differences.

What challenges or barriers did you face as you prepared to go abroad? 

There was a vastly different academic and living system (in terms of finances and registration as foreign citizen for example) which took quite a while to figure out. By constantly staying on top of things and asking university staff or government offices, none of these challenges were unsolvable.

How were your programs academically similar or different from taking courses at UW-Madison?

The class meeting schedule in my program was more often and longer than UW-Madison courses, however the length of the class was only a month or so which made it similar to boot camp courses at Madison. They are similar in the sense that exams and papers are few but make up the entirety of your grade.