Study Abroad Student Perspective

Ripping open the envelope and pulling out the single thin piece of paper, I knew my life was going to change quite dramatically in the next few seconds. I slowly opened the letter, and read the first word. Congratulations. I had been accepted. My first thought was, "Well, now I have to make a decision."

Contrary to many people, my discovery of being accepted to an Indiana University overseas program was not met with immediate joy, but with uncertainty and reservation. Here I had the opportunity to spend a year overseas studying in a German university in Hamburg, Germany's second largest (and most beautiful) city, and yet I was hesitating. I tried to figure out why I wasn't jumping up and down screaming, as I knew some of my counterparts did. Sure there was money, and credits, and graduating on time, and that kind of thing running through my head, but it turns out that those external factors were not what was holding me back. Internal ones were.

See, the thing is I'm gay. Now one may be wondering what that has to do with studying overseas for a year. There is no easy answer for that, but the quick answer is everything and nothing. Being gay did not affect my ability to speak German or my academic prowess, but it has quite a big effect on who I am. I knew that I would be going to live in a foreign country in a different culture, and that I would be spending quite a lot of intense time with about 20 other Americans, most of whom I did not know. How would my sexual orientation fit into all of that? I also knew that I would be leaving my sphere of family and friends who knew I was gay – my sphere of comfort. I know from just everyday living that coming out is a constant process, but this was like starting over almost from scratch.

So the first thing I decided to do was research. I wanted to find out as much as I could about the GLBT community in Germany. I found I was very lucky when it came to gathering that information. The best resource was the Overseas Study office itself. It contained the information pertaining to the GLBT community on almost every (if not all) the programs. This information was presented in a number of formats. One was student evaluations asking specific questions concerning sexual orientation issues. Many newsletters that were made by students to be passed on to the following year's students also contained information about clubs, community centers, publications, and other resources that were available to GLBT students in each country. There were also other brochures and pamphlets available on GLBT issues in general.

All of this information did a great deal to ease my mind. I had a pretty fair idea of the level of tolerance that existed in Hamburg, what was available to me as a gay student, and just the simple fact that the information was there, made me feel like this was something that would not be an issue for me or anyone else on the program.