Corey Yearous: Fachhochschule-Mannheim

When I told people I was going to Germany to study and work abroad for 7 months most of the people I talked to thought I was completely crazy. I must admit I too had some apprehensions about going over. After all, I was going to a place where I knew practically no one and could only sort of speak the language. I studied German in high school but had not used it for about 2 years so needless to say it was a bit rusty. When I first arrived in Germany it was definitely a challenge for me to communicate with other people. I realized the importance of communication from my experience.

The exchange program I participated in is between John Deere, Iowa State, and the Fachochschule Mannheim für Technik und Gestaltung (Mannheim University of Applied Sciences). It involves a 2-3 month internship at the John Deere Works in Mannheim and a semester studying at the Fachochschule (FH). Some of you are probably wondering what a FH is. Well, in Germany they don’t have all subjects at one university like we do. Instead they have Fachochschulen, which literally translated means “subject schools”. They focus on a specific group of subjects and are usually more practice oriented. The school that I went to was only for engineering and design. The classes are normally smaller than the ones we have at Iowa State. The smaller class size made it easier to get to know people, especially since many of us shared the same classes. I found that after awhile I was able to understand the lectures fairly well and did not have too much trouble doing the homework. I was also able to ask other people in the class when I had questions about an assignment or if there was a concept that I didn’t understand. Now that I’ve mentioned homework, you don’t normally turn much of it in. Your final grade is determined solely from a final test taken at the end of the semester. I really enjoyed the experience of taking classes in another language and it was very interesting to see the differences between the way classes are taught in the Germany as opposed to the US.

Because the semester at the FH goes from March to July, my internship terms were both before and after my semester studying. I arrived in Mannheim in mid-January and worked until about the end of February. I then returned to work the middle of July and worked another month until the middle of August. My internship experience in Mannheim was interesting because it gave me the chance to see how a business is run in a different country. I worked for John Deere in Waterloo the previous summer so I already had some idea of how John Deere worked as a company and it was very interesting to see how different the same company was run in two different countries. During my internship, I worked in the Advanced Engineering department and was able to work on projects that were completely new to me so I gained a lot of new knowledge during this time. The department I worked in was also nice because there were a lot of other student interns working there.

One of the things I enjoyed the most about studying abroad was the opportunity to travel. I did everything from going skiing in Austria one weekend in February with some other John Deere employees to going to Paris, Frankfurt, and Prague with some friends of mine who were also studying and/or working abroad during Easter break. Within Germany I visited Heidelberg, Stuttgart, Munich, Cologne, Rothenburg, and Berlin and I was also able to go to 7 other countries (France, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Switzerland, England, Poland, and Holland) during my time there. I did not have a whole lot of time off but due to Mannheim’s central location I was also able to do some traveling on weekends.

I have definitely learned a great deal from my experience abroad. My German skills have improved immensely and I got the chance to see what it is like to live in a different culture. I also had the opportunity to meet and interact with people from all over the world. For me, studying abroad has been a great experience and I would gladly do it again. The beginning of my experience seemed hard at first, but as I look back on it I realize the things that I have gained from my experience completely outweigh the difficulties I encountered. The chance to live and work in a different culture and learn another language are invaluable experiences that will help me greatly in whatever I decide to do in the future.