Useful Tips to Prepare For Your Semester Abroad (2/2)

This is part 2 of the “Useful Tips to Prepare For Your Semester Abroad”. Of course, there are a lot more things that you have to account for and considered while you are getting ready, the following are just some of the tips I am glad I knew from my friends around me and things that I wished I did when I was getting ready for my exchange semester. I hope you will find them useful and I will definitely consider making a Part 3 of this series if I have any additional tips I can think of!

1. Print out photos of family, friends, pet, food, or whatever you like

Once you reach the dorm in Mannheim and the wall will be a little simple, and you will want to put some pictures on the wall to make it look better. The photo of you family, friends and pets will be a little part of home that you can bring a long to Germany to help cure the homesick you have in the middle of the nights, or when they can’t pick up your calls during the time differences. You would also want to have some old pictures with you to keep you company beside the pictures that’s available on Facebook.

2. Scan and make multiple copies of all your important document before your trip

Scanning all of your important personal document just for emergency purposes. Making sure you bring multiple copies on your carry-on and checked baggage. It will be useful to leave those information along with your credit card information for your family, or someone you can trust so they might contact certain agencies or school on your behalf for you.

Important document: Passport, Acceptance Letter, Health Insurance, Driver License, Visa (If needed)

As someone who had worked at the Bursar’s Office before, a lot of parents were unable to talk to the university regarding on the billing because the students didn’t waiver their FEPRA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) privacy rights. If you are expecting a refund from UMass as your spending money abroad, make sure you put down a valid bank account for Access Express Enrollment, so you won’t need to wait a long time until you receive the money.

3. Download the offline Google Map for Mannheim

There will be many places that you would need to be on the first day of Mannheim, therefore having a map of the city would be handy when it comes to going to different places for the first time. The city of Mannheim used the block system (similar to New York City), which mean even if you get lost, you can’t be too lost in the city. Also you might not feel too ready to ask a stranger for direction with your German (or English), so you won’t need to feel too lost on your first day at Mannheim. Eventually you will be used to the city and won’t need the map anymore, or you met new friends the next day that you can all get lost together (which sometimes is part of the fun at a foreign country)!

4. Enjoy your UMass Dining Experiences, and all the other food

As a student of the University with the #1 dinning service, you will certainly miss your dinning hall and Blue Wall (Even though they are really expensive). Make sure you eat your favorite dishes from the dining common before you have to say bye to them for an entire semester. As an upperclassman who was really sick of the UMass food, I missed the options we had when I was in Mannheim. It doesn’t hurt to order Wings over Amherst, Insomnia Cookies, Pioneer Valley for a couple more times before your journey. Also support to local restaurants at Amherst downtown before you return the next semester.

As someone who is from Boston, make sure you eat all the “common food” from the area (Lobster roll, New England Clam Chowder), because before you know it you will be in Germany and those food will not be so “common” near where you live.

5. Talk to others that went abroad before

It is normal to feel unprepared for your semester abroad, and talking to someone who had went through the journey definitely helped. It doesn’t have to be someone who did the exact program as you. (However we all would love to talk to you if you need some advice on suggestions regarding on anything you have concerns for!) The study abroad journey is very memorable and unique to everyone, so people often have different approach to prepare for it. Listening to other people’s experience will get you prepare for some of the excitement and obstacle that you will be facing and get you excited for the journey of a lifetime.  

Useful Tips To Prepare For Your Semester Abroad (1/2)

Most of us have not been study abroad before or at least be in a foreign country for 6 months without our family. The following is some useful tips from my experience to help smoothen the hectic experience you will need to face once you arrive in a new country:

1. Exchange your Euro

Before you even reach the airport, make sure you have a small amount of Euro with you! Exchange them ahead of time at your local bank for a better exchange rate and smaller transaction fee.

I understand where parents are coming from when they don’t want the students to carry too much cash with them while traveling. You will still need to survive the days between the German bank account is set up and the money to be transferred internationally. Unlike the United States, most places in Europe preferred cash over credit cards, so only carry credit card won’t get you very far when you are in Germany.

Carry a small amount of cash for the bus tickets and lunches at the sandwich shop, so you won’t need to run around looking for a ATM (or borrow money from a stranger).

MAKE SURE WHEN YOU EXCHANGE YOUR MONEY, GET A MIX OF SMALL AND LARGE NOTES!

2. Notify your credit card company to put a travel notice

This is a must when you are traveling to a foreign country for a long period of time. Credit card company will suspend the card if they see any unusual transaction activity (transaction in a foreign country) because it might be a credit card fraud. In order to unsuspend your credit card, student will need to take time out of their busy schedule (Believe me, you will not want to take any time out of your first couple of weeks in exchange to make those long, annoying phone call). Your phone plane abroad is definitely not as good as the one we usually have so you won’t want to waste your minute/money on those phone calls that you can totally avoid by calling ahead of time.

Also when you call the credit card company, make sure you also tell them the countries you are interested in travel so they can include those places when they are putting down the travel notice for you to avoid any further troubles.

3. Bring a set of travel size shampoo, body wash, toothpaste, toothbrush

It might sound silly for you to bring travel size shampoo and body wash on your 6 months trip. Many people would just not bring any and buy them once you reach Germany. I am not telling you to just use the travel size shampoo and body wash for your entire semester abroad, you certainly need to buy more of those once you reach Germany. (Don’t give German a bad impression of American by not showering, that would just be disgusting.) The moment you landed Germany, there would be a list of things you need to accomplished within the first day. By the time you finish taking care of those business, it would be night time already. After a long hectic day and 8-hour international flight, you would want to take a nice hot shower to end your day. By the way, there’s not a lot of 24-hours CVS type of stores for you to go to when you realized that you taking had the chance to buy any of the stuff. You don’t want to end your first night abroad in a foreign country that you were preparing to go to for the longest time ever in a bad mood.

Even if you didn’t need to use any of them for your first day, you can always bring them for your weekend trips (too many weekends for you to go on trips!), so they will never be a wasted!

4. Bring your winter jacket and different type of clothing

I checked the weather for Mannheim when I was packing my clothes, it doesn’t seem to be too cold as compared to the typical New England weather that we have all experienced. I only brought a lot of my sweaters and thin jackets for my time abroad. It was the biggest mistake I have ever made from all the things that I did to prepare for my sweater abroad. It is true that the weather in Mannheim is not as cold as New England (It still hasn't snowed here...which I kinda missed the snow), it is so cold here. I will also like to blame the horrible heating we have here in Mannheim as compared to the one we have in UMass or at home. As someone who is super lazy and drive down the street instead in the winter, walking around the city of Mannheim in the winter was the most upsetting things I had the do in Mannheim.

You will need to bring your winter jacket, because you might want to travel to a cooler countries which it is useful to have instead of spending a lot of money for a new winter jacket. I ended up buying a new winter jacket in Mannheim because it was too cold for me and I just don’t want to get sick. If you are expecting to be buying new jackets when you reach Mannheim, then don’t pack your jacket because it takes out a lot of space (We all understand and won’t be telling our parents that ;))

Also need to bring different type of clothing, all the different weekend trips and spring break that you will be gone for would require different type of clothing. Even though you are only going for six months, you will want to make sure you have the appropriate clothing for different weather.

5. Bring at least one outlet adapter

Beside the shampoo and body wash, it should be one of those objects that you will needed the most for your first night abroad. After a long day after you finished checking in and setting up the bank account, you would probably want to charge your laptop after you Netflix for a little while because you are still really awake from the time difference it has from Boston, or charge your phone because you need to set an alarm clock for you to get up in time to for the first day of Winter Academy. The one outlet adapter would let you still connected with family and friends back home or the new friends that you just met in Manheim. Having the one adapter would also allow you to be connect with the outside world (We all know how insecure we feel when our phones are dead) until you have the time to go to the store to purchase extra adapter for your other electronic.

If you don’t want your families to worry about you or not be able to call / iMessage / Facetime / Skype / WhatsApp / GroupMe / Gchart you, then it is for your best interest to bring at least one outlet adapter.