My first encounter with the Georgetown Department of German was the course Text in Context with Professor Marianna Ryshina-Pankova. It was the fall semester of my freshman year, and I had just returned from a year on exchange in Switzerland, during which I had been immersed in Swiss dialect. I had to wrap my head around the sounds and formulations of standard German, and Professor Ryshina-Pankova’s structured method showed me the way.
As I began a course on beat poetry with visiting professor Nika Pfeifer in the spring of 2020, I was blithely planning my time as a study-abroad student at the University of Vienna. When our discussions were moved to Zoom due to COVID, the playful, creative atmosphere of that class was a consolation. And when my study-abroad program was cancelled and I took the leap of planning a “do-it-yourself” study abroad, it was with her help that I found wonderful roommates in Vienna. Georgetown’s liaison at the University of Vienna, Helga Kahofer, helped me to get oriented and showed me the city, even though I was not an official study-abroad student.
Taking Business in Germany with Professor Anja Banchoff and, this semester, Contemporary German Literature with Professor Peter Pfeiffer has helped me to develop my language abilities further and broadened my cultural knowledge. My journey continues next fall in Munich, where I will start my career as a consultant at PwC. I am grateful to the Department of German for opening up the German-speaking world to me and making the next chapter of my life possible.