Jessica McBride '06 was one of 15 students selected from undergraduates across the United States and Canada as a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Young Ambassador.
The DAAD, which provides information and funding to students and professors researching or studying abroad, announced the pilot year of its Young Ambassadors Program in a press release on Friday. The program received 40 applications this year.
Selected students attend a two-day training session in New York, which prepares them to work with their college study abroad offices to promote study in Germany.
Students were selected on the basis of their enthusiasm for foreign study in Germany, communication skills and adviser recommendations, according to the press release.
McBride, who is majoring in history with a certificate in German language and culture, spent her summer interning in Berlin. She also did research in the Berlin city archives for her thesis on the return of German prisoners-of-war to a newly divided Berlin after World War II.
McBride recalled the spring semester of her sophomore year — which she spent studying at Berlin's Humboldt and Frieie Universities — as a defining point in her college career and her personal growth.
"Being in Berlin, where the bullet holes are still in the walls and where history is completely present and ubiquitous, fortified my decision to be a history major," McBride said. "[There], everyone is engaged in politics. There is such a feeling of action, of involvement. It opened up my idea of what a society is, and what a country should be built upon."
As a Young Ambassador, McBride plans to increase awareness of the opportunities for engineers and scientists to study in Germany, which she said is not just a place for language and humanities concentrators.
She also sees this as an opportunity to present Germany as it is today.
"Images people have are still of Bach, Beethoven or Hitler," McBride said. "It presents a bias people have to overcome when considering studying or researching there."
"I'm incredibly enthusiastic about my experiences in Germany," she added. "I'm also enthused about sharing my experiences with other students."
The Young Ambassadors Program selects students, like McBride, who are able to relate to students on a peer level in ways the DAAD office staff cannot, said Brid Schenkl, coordinator of the program.
Schenkl also said that if the program runs smoothly, it may expand to 30 students next year.
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