“Wait, so where is that?” “Deloit?” “Why are you actually in Wisconsin?” These are all real things I’ve heard after introducing myself in Berlin.
With a vast majority of students coming from larger state schools, coming to Berlin was, to say the least, nerve-wracking. I was far from home, the people I knew, and outside of my comfort zone in general. I mean, I don’t speak much German outside of basic introductory sentences, so there was going to be a large learning curve.
Possibly the biggest challenge was introducing where I’m from. The FU-BEST program, the direct enrollment program that Beloit College has with Freie Universität Berlin, is 95% American. Even though I was surrounded by Americans, I only met one person who had heard of Beloit- a Wisconsinite from Madison.
These conversations with new friends have been a reality check for me, making me even happier for being a Beloiter. I’ve spoken highly of Beloit, giving my friends an impression of a school that is close and personal.
I asked a few friends what Beloit sounded like to them after two weeks of me hyping the college up. Anson Hacey from University of Kansas said it “seems like Beloit is a pretty tight-knit community that almost everyone knows each other.” Jared Munguia from Rutgers University told me something he liked about Beloit is “the smaller classroom sizes,” because “you kind of have a more personal relationship with a professor.”
In my view, both of them were right in their takeaways. I’m sure when I come back in spring I’ll see a bunch of new faces, but it’ll still be the campus I left in May.
Other students talk about how hard it is to get into their frat parties in their schools of 50,000+ students or about sitting in lectures of hundreds of people where there is no interaction with professors.
Ruby Schober-Colburn ‘27 from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill told me that Beloit sounds great as a small school; however, “while you can form close connections, it may be a little trickier to broaden your circle. If there is a conflict it’s a lot harder to step away from it since everything is so tight-knit.”
Over the past two-ish weeks I’ve come to appreciate Beloit more, as an unknown rough-around-the-edges gem that is near to my heart. For the students who plan on studying abroad, a surprising aspect you might not expect is that you begin to appreciate Beloit far more when you’re away from it than when you are on campus.
Featured image: Demir Kasapoglu’28
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