Submitted by Keegan McKelligan on the 2024 Winter LLCU program in Leipzig, Germany…
This was our last week here in Leipzig, and I wanted to make it count. As for the language course, we were wrapping up our lessons and preparing for the two final exams, the written and oral. At this point in the program I was confident in my ability for both, especially because of the instruction from my instructors, which is a lot different from how I felt when I first heard about the exams in the beginning of the program. Both tests ended up going great, and during them I could tell how much I had improved from start to end. The last thing that we had to do for the program class, was to give a presentation on research that we as a group collected throughout the program entirely in German. My group and I chose to talk about the food and beer in the federal state where Leipzig is located, mainly because we just wanted to eat food. It was around a 10 minute presentation, and went extraordinarily well considering I’ve never done anything so complex in German before. After that we finally got our certificates for passing our class, and went on to have lunch as a group with our professors. It was sad to part ways with them, as we’ve gotten to know each other over the past 4 weeks, but we began our departure for our final trip, Berlin, which I’ve been most excited about. After a fairly long bus ride, we were finally there. Majority of our time in Berlin we were entirely free to do whatever we wanted, however we still visited many of the most historic sites as a group. Of course, we visited the various clubs that Berlin is renowned for, and they lived up to their reputation. As I prepared for the long and sad trip back home, I thought about the overall experience that this program had given me, and how Germany will be something that I remember forever. (February 4, 2024)
