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I studied abroad during the fall semester of 2011 in Freiburg, Germany for IES’ European Union studies program. Freiburg is in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) region of southern Germany. I lived in an apart-ment with six German students who also attended the University of Freiburg. I chose this program because of the many government based classes offered which allowed me to learn about governmental organi-zations from a European perspective.

My program, which consisted of about fifty other students, traveled a lot. We went to Brussels, Prague, Berlin, Stuttgart, Strasbourg, Ma-drid, Barcelona, Paris and Luxembourg. We attended meetings at the European Union Commission and the EU Parliament. This trip was an incredible experience that was both highly educational and extraordi-narily fun. I would recommend this trip to any government major interested in studying abroad!

I've been residing in Beijing since August, where I live with a working class Chi-nese family--no one in the family speaks any English, which has been an interest-ing challenge that has gotten gradually easier for me throughout the year (I spoke basically no Chinese when I first arrived). I've been in IES's Beijing Language Intensive program, a challenging, but highly rewarding program, in which I have Chinese class for four hours per day, four days per week--taught with no English. This semester, I am making a movie with a script written completely in Chinese. Additionally, I have studied Chinese politics and environmental policy and, last semester took an internship seminar with a weekly internship with an interna-tional research NGO, located in Beijing's business district. This semester I am conducting independent research about the Chinese healthcare system, studying how the hukou system (housing certificate system) has been a leading reason for the extreme divide in access to healthcare among urban and rural Beijingers.

The IES center is located at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), where Chinese students from all over the country come to study. I have met some great young Chinese people on campus, who love interacting with American students, providing great opportunities to practice Chinese. The Chinese are an unbelieva-bly friendly and welcoming people, so I've had a wonderful experience living and studying here. During my year in Beijing, I have taken two two-week trips with my program, first semester to Manchuria, and second semester to Yunnan prov-ince in the south-central region of China. Additionally, I spent long weekends in Nanjing and Shanghai and am planning a weekend trip to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province (with the particularly spicy cuisine). I remained in Asia over the winter break, traveling to Vietnam, Thailand, and Hong Kong with friends. All of these travel experiences have been fabulous and I'm so pleased to have had the opportunity to be here.

The weather is starting to warm up in Beijing and I'm really excited. Looking forward to catching up with everyone at Skidmore come fall.