Leaving home is never easy. With many seniors applying to college this fall, moving to a new and unfamiliar place is a thought lurking in everyone’s mind. Few people, however, plan on moving to a completely different country where people speak a different language and the culture is entirely new. This is exactly what sophomore Megan McConaughey decided to do when she was awarded a full scholarship to study abroad in Germany for this entire school year.

Before going to Germany, McConaughey attended a pre-departure camp in Washington, D.C., where she spent her time with other students who would be living abroad for a year. After that, McConaughey finally crossed the Atlantic and stayed with her first host family. While there, she went to a language camp to become more accustomed to the German language. Finally, she arrived with her current host family, where she will be living for the rest of the school year.

Although her host family could never replace her family in America,  McConaughey said she’s had a great time bonding with them. The family is made up of a mother and a father, two 18 year old sisters, and an older brother in his twenties. The twins are the only ones who live at home. Recently, McConaughey and some of her family members spent the weekend playing baseball with apples, which was a fun and unique bonding experience for her.

Along with bonding with her new family, McConaughey has made a lot of new friends. She was warned at her pre-departure camp that a lot of people wouldn’t be friendly at first and that no one would come up to her at school, but she has been pleasantly surprised by her classmates.

“Everyone has been ridiculously nice. The first day my host mom dropped me off and I was so scared, but everyone came up to me and introduced themselves immediately,” McConaughey said. Her class even had a breakfast party to celebrate her first week of school.

The more McConaughey meets and talks to new people, the more she realizes there are a lot of misconceptions and stereotypes that Germans have about Americans. She said, “They think we eat McDonald’s every single day, but they eat it way more than I do. People always ask me ‘McDonalds or Burger King?’” McConaughey has also been asked on multiple occasions if she owns a gun because our gun laws are much more lenient. She said many Germans think everyone in America owns a gun.

McConaughey has also been surprised to learn how closely many Germans follow American politics and pop culture. Deez Nuts’ presidential campaign is one of the most talked about topics she’s heard so far. McConaughey said, “They are really involved in American politics. They have a whole class on it where they study American current events.”

Even though McConaughey is out exploring the world, she hasn’t left Scituate behind. Her close friend, sophomore Hannah Lydon, said, “We either text or Facetime every Monday.” She said she also misses her family and her dog Callie, adding, “I would love a hug from my mom right now.”

Along with missing her family and friends, McConaughey has had to cope with the differences in the German and American lifestyle. “The metric system screws with my brain,” she said, “The clocks throw me off too, since they use military time.” Having to speak and understand German in all of her classes has been difficult, since McConaughey is new to the language.

McConaughey has learned to understand conversational German fairly well, but she said the vocabulary used in school is different, which makes it much harder to communicate. Being new to the culture means she is making a lot of mistakes, but she said she takes her daily challenges in stride.   

“Humility is really important during an exchange. I have done nothing correct yet, so I’ve had to laugh at myself a lot,” McConaughey said.

Remembering the time she was trying to tell her host family that her bike was broken, McConaughey said her bike was sick. Her host family thought this was hilarious, and they have not let her live it down.

So far, McConaughey’s experience living abroad has been exciting, enlightening and challenging. It’s always hard to leave home, but McConaughey feels she is growing from the experience. If you would like to read more about Megan and her experiences abroad in her poignant and well written blog chronicling her life in Germany titled Wanderlust: My Year Abroad in Germany.