26. August 2018
Goals
Guten Tag!
For my time studying abroad in Mannheim I have decided to write a blog as a way to store my photos, memories and feelings. As part of the study abroad programme I have to write three reflective essays over the course of the year which focus on my goals and how I go about achieving them. In the official essay I included some of my key goals which seemed suitable e.g. write this blog; keep a journal; learn German; travel etc. However, there are other goals I realised I had for the year which I didn't think should go in an academic essay. So I'm going to list all my goals, including those extra few here.
- Meet actual Germans to practice speaking with.
- Spend time with other exchange students all over the world to learn differences between the UK culture and their own.
- Have friends from across the world for future holidays...
- Understand the German university system and their way of teaching especially economics.
- Visit lots of theme parks including Europa-park, PhatasiaIsland, Heidepark and Disneyland Paris.
- Try traditional German food and lots of German cake.
- Keep track of the year, through blogging, journalling, photos and scrapbooks.
- Travel to as many German cities as possible for as cheap as possible in order to try the food and understand more about German culture.
- Also travel to the European countries around Germany to learn more about each of these.
- Be more confident; actually try speaking the language rather than reverting to English just because they understand it.
From this list and my essay I've realised how important having goals are. The food and theme parks goals probably weren't suitable to send back to Leeds but they are important to me for the year. They also give me things to achieve to overcome homesickness and they ensure I meet other people as I have to in order to achieve them!
But, the most important thing I learned from this list and my first few days in the beautiful city of Mannheim was that goals have to be manageable. I love organising things but feeling like there are all these things you have to do can make you lose sight of what is important and the beauty of the place you are in.
So have your goals and try and reach them but, if they don't go fully to plan, embrace it because you've probably achieved something else you never expected!
