Queen Mary University of London History student Naomi was destined to study abroad in Berlin. Learn all about a year abroad in Germany’s capital, studying at Humboldt University of Berlin.

When I was about 14, my mum bought me a t-shirt from Tesco to use as a new pyjama top. Emblazoned on the front were two pictures; one of the Fernsehturm and the other, an aerial photo of Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain. I can’t remember her reasoning for buying me that specific t-shirt but I think deep down my mum knew I would eventually end up in Berlin. Maybe it was the five years of German classes I took at school, which anyone who studied a language to GCSE level will know means absolutely nothing when it comes to fluency or understanding of a language. Maybe it was my obsession with German TV shows as a kid, particularly Deutschland 83 and Parfum (please don’t watch the dubbed versions, use subtitles, I beg). Maybe it was how sad I was to miss out on my school’s annual Berlin trip in Year 10. Or maybe it was my determination, even then, that when I went to university, I would study abroad in Germany.

I won’t lie, arriving here sucked. I arrived 3 days after my 21^st birthday at a low point for me emotionally. I was scared about moving abroad. Anxious to the point it made me nauseous. Homesick in a way I have never experienced before. And as well as that, it was also really hot when I arrived and I am potentially the most anti-hot weather person you could ever meet. Give me a thunderstorm and a downpour and I’m golden. I also had a stomach bug of some form when I arrived that lasted two weeks and then I got food poisoning immediately afterwards. I had learnt German at school but I hadn’t spoken it in six years and was really rusty. I was nervous about the new university. I didn’t know anything about the style of classes or how to pick my timetable or what types of assignments they expected or what the lecturers were like. I found my flat for the year a week before I moved in. Everything was done so last minute and I was stressed to say the least.

My only saving grace was the language course I did before term started. The university academic year in Germany actually starts mid-way through October but I arrived a month early to brush up on my German and get me to a state where I wasn’t entirely hopeless in navigating the city and reading signs or food labels. All at once I was getting to grips with a new city and transport system, moving into my flat for the year and now having 5 hours of German classes per day five times a week. I genuinely think that in that month I had more hours of German tuition than I had in five years at school.

It was here in those unseasonably warm classrooms that I made my first friends in Berlin. I remember my German teacher telling me after the course was over that she had noticed a change in me halfway through the month, like a switch had flicked inside me and I was finally starting to be comfortable in this new environment. Looking back, I can kind of see it too. Once I got over my initial illnesses, I felt more able to go socialise with my course mates outside of class hours. We got into a habit of going to get lunch and then sitting outside the Berliner Dom in the sun (if you saw the latest Hunger Games film, it’s the square in front of the Capitol Building). It made making friends a lot easier. Thankfully there were other outgoing people in the course who organised many group meet-ups in bars or in parks. Most of my closest friends that I have from my time in Berlin, I met through the language course.

Once the actual term started it was difficult to find a routine at first. It felt like being in Freshers Week again where you’re getting lost in new buildings and trying not to make a fool of yourself in front of strangers. Because of how the Uni system works here I was doing classes from a range of disciplines and meeting loads of people from different backgrounds. It was a tough learning curve getting to grips with the difference in class style. They’re two hours long and more intensely focused on the weekly texts (of which there can be anywhere between 30 to 200 pages a week per module). Also because of how the credit transfer system works, we can’t take lectures either so you are kind of going in blind to some of these discussions unless you do an in-depth Google deep dive mid-class. On the whole, as an international student, I did more written work and more class hours here than I usually do at QM. My longest was a 7k essay on the topic of national identity and Eurovision. I got a bit too into it, I won’t lie. I even made a spreadsheet.

No matter how tough the classes and workload got, I had my friends around me to see me through the tough times. We would sit in parks whilst the sun went down chatting about life or be in companionable silence whilst we stressed about our individual assignments in one of the many cafés we explored in Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg (St Oberholz and The Greens, you will always have my heart <3). As well as them, I kept in good contact with my family and old friends. It made some hard times much easier.

This year has been tough but I have grown in so many ways. I am glad that I came despite all this year’s faults and challenges. I go back to London with incredible memories, life lessons learnt and a newfound love for Franzbrötchen. That being said, as I sit here in this airport, I cannot wait to go home.

Settling in to a new city is hard and sometimes exhausting. Listen to yourself, go at your own pace, and try just wandering around the city, you’ll get a better sense of your new environment and you never know what hidden gem you might find.