Rachel Collman

To begin, the beautiful landscape of southern Austria is very similar to the mountains of Western North Carolina I call home. Austria has more snowy peaks, especially in the west, but the rolling hills and lush green forests felt like Asheville. I spent much of my semester, during class breaks and weekends, traveling across the country and throughout Europe. I became friends with many Austrian students who invited me to their homes in other provinces to spend time meeting their families. Although hospitality can be found in every culture, I was lucky to be welcomed and engulfed in the Austrian version of hospitality. There is a perception, which I knew about before I went to Austria, of a reservation associated with Germanic culture. In Austria people do not necessarily say "hi" or make eye contact with every passerby on the street, but the local Austrians I met in Graz were more than happy to give directions and help when I needed it. Although Graz is the second largest in Austria, about 250,000 people inhabit it. I liked the contrast of living in a bigger city. The university was a different kind of college than I was used to. It was larger than UNC Asheville and didn’t have the student involvement that I love to be a part of. Although this could have felt isolating, I welcomed the chance to be lost in a crowd. Living in another culture with different values and in a much bigger city, I realized that little things I thought were a big deal did not actually matter. No one cared about what I was wearing and that allowed me to stop caring so much about it, too. That being said, I found that European culture values looking good, but with different purpose so as to value yourself, not how others view you.

The campus itself was exactly how I expected an old European university would look. With classical buildings and a library that was heavenly, I enjoyed the limited time I spent on campus outside of class. I found that to most students, university was a small aspect of their lives. Tuition is free and classes usually meet only once a week, so many students take on other responsibilities beyond school. This was a stark contrast to the life I lead at UNC Asheville, where I am involved in countless student organizations, committees, and outside projects. I relished the free time I had that I used to explore the city and travel to other places. My course workload was structured differently that at my home university, where we have class multiple times a week and homework each night. In Graz, we met once a week, with only weekly readings and papers due at the end of the semester. I chose to take seminar courses, contrary to other exchange students who took mostly lectures where attendance was not mandatory. I am glad I chose seminars because I think I learned more from my Austrian colleagues than the professors. One course, about South Eastern European political culture, was a master’s level course with almost all Balkan students who brought their own personal experiences in the classroom. With two professors, one from Austria and one from Slovenia, combined with a diverse class of diverse students, I was taught in different ways I would not have experienced at UNC Asheville. When learning about the recent history of Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, and Macedonia, I heard stories from students who were alive during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. Although they were young at the time, their families and loved ones were directly involved in the violence and reconstruction of Former Yugoslavian states, as they became independent nations. The Southeastern European region was barely mentioned in my past world history education. It took extra work to learn more about the region but I am now confident in my understanding of these often overlooked places. I also had the chance to visit some of them with my friends and see how beautiful and welcoming they are.

I was serendipitously placed in student housing that had long-term international students and Austrians, rather than only short-term exchange students. I lived with Austrian, Canadian, Croatian, Polish, Thai, Bosnian, Bulgarian, and French students. Every day I was surrounded by international students, where I picked up a bit of these languages, along with recipes from all of these places. The friends I made in classes were hospitable and many invited me to visit their homes. One girl from my German course drove us around her home country of Slovenia for a weekend, and I remember it as one of my favorite trips. Slovenia is very small but has amazing natural wonders including complex caves, a 40-kilometer coast from which you can see Croatia and Italy at the same time, and famous Lake Bled with a castle on an island among bright teal water. More memorable than the natural beauty was the hospitality of a friend’s grandparents who spoke no English but fed us each with a week’s worth of food.

In every course I incorporated the critical thinking I learned at our liberal arts university. At every opportunity I questioned what was being said from all aspects to determine a certain truth. Many of my classes had more than just Austrian students, with many coming from other European countries for their degrees. While many international exchange students see their study abroad as a semester off, I did just as much work as at home but was challenged in different ways. There was a higher level of responsibility set upon the student, as there was no daily homework to help stay on track for the whole semester. I wrote two research papers and three other final papers with upwards of five thousand words each, all due at the end of the term, not neatly planned out along the way. I learned to manage my time, keeping up with work for my own sake, not due to the professor’s urging.

I was able to tackle unique topics that I would not have studied at UNC Asheville. At the end of one course, looking at student restorative justice and ecocriticism through literature, I researched Austrian victimhood. After World War II and the Holocaust, it took nearly five decades for Austria to fully admit and apologize for its actions. I found that political events during and immediately after World War II shaped a specific collective memory that excluded Austria from making reparations. Until the 1980s and 1990s the “victims’ doctrine” permeated Austrian culture from politics to the arts, and it was not until events like The Waldheim Affair and the release of the play, Heldenplatz, by Thomas Bernhard, that the public and government began to reassess its role and actions during the Holocaust. I enjoyed writing this paper and delving into Austria’s history focusing on such a controversial issue. I was able to discuss the topic of victimhood with my peers and they were more than willing to help me learn more. Before going to Austria I was interested in the country’s involvement and current perceptions of the Holocaust, especially since I am Jewish and have some family from Austria. As much as I absorbed from texts and papers, I learned more from those in my class who opened up to me about this topic.

Besides my time at university, I visited thirteen other countries. I had about a month off in April and May for Easter. During this time, I traveled alone for the first time to four countries and learned about myself. It was more trying than I expected to be alone and completely dependent on myself. Although I am very extroverted, I was forced to meet new people all the time in hostels and on trains. By the time I traveled again for a month after term ended, before returning home, being alone was preferable. I consider these times I traveled solo to be the best and most rewarding of my time abroad. I recommend it to anyone who wants to be challenged and really get to know herself. I loved my time abroad for being exposed to diverse people and places. My studies were challenging and have already contributed to my current courses back home. It is hard to fully describe the experiences I had and the ways it has benefited me. I can only say that I returned with a broader perspective and better understanding of the world around me. More than that, I know and appreciate myself to the fullest degree. I can only expect that future travels abroad will continue to build on these understandings.