My name is Michal Sabala. I am a Computer Engineering senior at UIUC and I
would like to tell you about my year long stay at Technische Universitaet
Darmstadt in Germany during 2001/2002 academic year.
First lets start with some background. I have been taking German since high
school, mainly for fun, but I continued studying german in college. I never
planned to participate in exchange programs. During the first semester
of junior year, I received a letter from IPENG. I never thought I could afford
going abroad, but after reading the information provided by IPENG office,
I decided to go. Without a doubt this was the single best decision
of my life.
While in all likelyhood you will not be able to accomplish as much academically
as you would by staying at UIUC, going abroad will give you insight and understanding
of other cultures that is invaluable. Hopefully when you come back from whichever
country you go to, you will be a different person, more open minded, independant,
and confident in your strenghts and better aware of your weaknesses. For the
duration of your stay abroad you will be alone. You won't have old
friends, family, not even people with whom you will be able to communicate
easily. But you will meet new people, old friends and family will be phonecall
away and you will perfect your language enough to survive. Take this
opportunity, don't be afraid and grow. In the following pages I'll tell you about my stay at TUD and hopefully convice you to go.
Michal