Video Transcript
Ashley Jacobson
Mannheim University, Germany


I think it’s a great experience all around. It’s going to be 
beneficial to anyone in any major, including business majors 
especially. There are so many countries that you can go to that 
offer great programs.  It’s an independence, it’s finding 
yourself and you meet such great people and you build relationships 
that you would never build otherwise.

I wanted to experience Europe because I had never left the 
country before.  And I wanted to improve my German language 
skills and I just really wanted to meet all those different 
people and be immersed into the culture.

Mannheim, Germany, is southern - it’s in Baden Württemberg 
that is 30 minutes south of Frankfurt; it’s just a train ride 
away, it’s real quick. It’s a university town, so the 
university takes up a very large portion of the city. There 
is a lot of shopping and the train station is right there, it’s 
not very far away - it’s very central to Mannheim and where 
you stay.  And then I stayed in an apartment in Hafenstrasse. 
I stayed in a flat with ten other people and I had a double 
room. The rooms are actually really big, not like our dorms 
at all.

The campus, they have a VISUM program which is like their 
international program where you meet up with different 
students. They had a lot of pub crawls and welcome parties 
and just kind of meet and greet things that you did a lot 
on campus, so that was really fun because you got to meet 
all of the other international students along with the actual 
German students that were there, so that was the majority 
of the school activities that we did.

I took two German language courses that were very intense; 
I took two business courses taught in English. My classes 
ended up being one day a week from 12 to 5 and that was it. 
I visited 15 countries and 28 cities. I definitely traveled 
all along the border of Germany. We went to Dublin for St. 
Patrick’s Day. I was in London, Paris, Lucerne in Switzerland, 
Prague, Budapest, like all the major cities and a couple of 
smaller ones, that while we were in the different countries, 
too.

I think I would be a completely different person.  I don’t 
think I would be as open-minded and independent and more 
readily available to just up and move places and, you know, 
go experience things that I’ve never done before than if I 
wouldn’t have gone. My parents didn’t think I was that 
independent. But me going to a completely different country 
on my own - because I didn’t know anyone before I went. I 
mean, I completely had this planned since I was a freshman; 
I didn’t know anyone that was going. I met the girl I roomed 
with the day of orientation, and we decided, ok, let’s room 
together so.. even if you think that you won’t be able to handle 
study abroad, do it, because you’ll realize a lot of things 
about yourself and it’ll be something that you’ll take with 
you for the rest of your life. And don’t be scared because 
you’re going to be away from your family for six months, 
because it will be the best six months of your life. Not 
just because you’re away from your parents, but because 
you’ll be doing things that a lot of your friends probably 
will never do and your parents maybe have never done. You’ll 
be able to have all that experience and you’re only a freshmen, 
or sophomore or junior in college, so... it’s exciting.