Ann Love, an engineering physics student from Southern California, explains why she chose to attend a German university despite being far from home. She was drawn by the opportunities available, including the ability to tailor her degree and specialization to her interests. She also wanted to experience living in Germany and learning about a different culture. Through interactions with people from diverse backgrounds, she has gained a broader perspective on how to apply her engineering skills to help others around the world. Overall, the university has provided invaluable learning experiences and opportunities that have helped her become who she wants to be.

1. Why I came to Oldenburg?
When your home is warm, sunny Southern California, how do you explain why you
traveled half way around the globe, away from family and real Mexican food to attend a
German University? This is the question I am answering here today.
My name is Ann Love and I am currently a 5th
semester Engineering Physics student at
this University. Today I decided I would share my reasons and experiences with you.
I have been asked so many times why give up surfing, sunshine, and my tan for this?
Here you can’t wear flip flops all year, no one is nearly as chillax as people from
southern California, and I now sound like a foreigner back home.
The short answer is opportunity. I knew coming to this program, I could take risks, find
myself, and learn to be who I wanted to be. I could mess up and it would just be another
learning experience not the end of my university career.
This program showed me opportunities. I knew I wanted to study Engineering, but I
didn’t know what about it I liked. At this program I could learn and figure out really
what kind of engineering I wanted to study and what kind of engineer I wanted to be.
That sold me. I had no idea what area interested me. But here I could specialize in what
they have or create my own specialization. If what I wanted was not available at
Oldenburg I had the opportunity to take those courses elsewhere. This program offered
me the chance to be whoever and whatever I wanted to be. There is no norm, there is no
set path. They let me set my own. Before I came here I knew what makes a university
program great is not the classes that you take but it is the professors, students, and
opportunities you encounter. This is the heart of any program.
Besides the opportunity to invent myself and mold my degree to what I wanted, I also
came to this University because it was in Germany. I wanted to learn what it was like to
live here and compare our ways of life. Granted I didn’t know that included me learning
how to use a clothes line, or learning that people still actually use clothes lines. Or that
when it gets cold here it doesn’t get warmer as the day goes on, you actually do need a
coat. I didn’t know that because I came from California that many people assumed that I
was a wine expert despite the fact that I am not even allowed to drink alcohol there yet. I
wanted a German to look at me like I was an idiot for wearing flip flops in the snow and
going outside when it is -5 with wet hair. I came here cause I knew in Oldenburg I would
have the chance to really understand the differences and be able to share them with
others. And at the same time Germans got to learn some things from me.
Things like in California we can go skiing and surfing on the same day. And, yes we do
see movie stars often and sometimes they even go to our schools or play with us in sports,
and for us it is no big deal. They get to learn that a lot of southern Californians have
gardeners and maids and that does not make you rich. And finally most confusing is that
though we have easily 300 plus days a year of warm sunshine, we would never use the
sun to dry our clothes—we all have clothes dryers. I knew coming here, I could learn

2. countless things in and out of class that would shape the way I think. Going to university
anywhere else, I would only have the chance to learn from others in class, but here I
knew I would have the chance to learn from everyone, all the time.
The other benefit of coming to Oldenberg was my enriched view of how my engineering
skills can help others. I learned to think outside the box because of the many interactions
I have had with others with other ideologies, cultures, and values.
Our goal as engineers is to do usually one of two things, maintain and try to improve
things that have already been developed, or to create our own things. But to do either of
these things, as engineers it helps a lot to know what people need. Whether it is cheaper
equipment or more precise technology at any cost. To be a success, I knew I would need
a program that could help me interact with people from all over the world so that if I ever
work for a company, and they ask me to work on something for people in another
country, I might already have an idea of what the people and that country’s needs are.
Through this program, I get the opportunity to learn how to interact with people from
other countries and learn about their cultures and customs before I become an Engineer
and before I would need to develop or improve a product to fit their needs. I knew that to
become a successful engineer, I would need to follow what interested me and be able to
apply that to the real world and to other peoples needs.
Here I knew I would have this chance to learn how to use my engineering skills to
improve the world no matter where that might be. I knew that it would make me that
much more successful in my career.
Coming to Oldenburg was taking a chance, I threw myself in the ring and I try to make
the most of it. The opportunities that I thought I would have, that I have had, and the
opportunities yet to come have taught me that here I can be whoever I want to be.
I have had the chance to learn from people from 5 different continents and coming here I
didn’t totally know what it would hold, I could only do a small analysis of the
pros and cons of all of the choices I had and pick the place that I thought would
best suit me, and looking back on why I came here and everything that I have
learned. I wouldn’t change it for anything. So coming from California, I may have
given up a lot but what I have gained here and the opportunities I have had here
and will have here are unimaginable and are far more important to me then my
awesome tan or all the waves that I have missed.