A Year in Berlin

I chose to come to Berlin for the entire academic year primarily because I had the space for it in my schedule and FU-BEST's course offerings would allow me to fit two minors into my degree. FU-BEST is set up in a way that allows your study abroad experience to be both experiential and academic; the subject courses offer a good introduction into different fields and are not extremely demanding, thus giving you plenty of space to explore Berlin and Europe. The courses act more as survey courses in order to accommodate a wide variety of academic backgrounds from students, and as such, might not appeal to those who are used to working in-depth in their field. (That being said, the subject courses are a great opportunity to take something outside of one's field and learn more about Germany and Europe while you're at it.)

For those interested in the language component, FU-BEST operates best when you "make the most of it as you will." While I found the Intensive German courses good for learning vocabulary and more refined sentence structures, (non-beginning) students who came to the program without a good preexisting grasp of grammar basics definitely seemed to struggle more. The homestay option was my biggest asset in becoming more comfortable with the language, and I highly recommend it for students looking to improve their German. One of the biggest complaints I heard was students feeling discouraged about practicing their German in the city, but opportunities are certainly there if you look and persist. (:

The program exists in a bit of a (mostly) American bubble because it is not a direct enrollment program, but I appreciated the fact that it is not a school-specific program so that you can meet students from different campuses. In addition, the FU-BEST staff are wonderful to work with and easy to talk to!

If you have the option to go abroad for a year, then definitely consider coming to Berlin. You'll never be bored, and being abroad for two semesters means that you won't feel stressed about fitting everything into one.