Tulsa, Oklahoma - Where the heck is that anyway?

Hello erverybody! :) 

Time is flying and a lot has happened during the last  two weeks. Last week TU actually discovered that my partner in crime Ann-Kathrin (she is the other girl coming to TU for student teaching) and I won't be able/ allowed to participate in the student teacher course because we didn't take the courses needed to participate at TU. We were rather upset since it was only three weeks until we fly out and everything was ready and done. They proposed for us to come to Tulsa as interns at the University School which would have been a very fine solution except that we already prepared everything (visa, flight, immunizations etc.) to be students at TU. Long story short: We will be full-time students at TU and also volunteer at the University School. :) Best of both worlds! 

Now there are only two weeks left and I still don't really know so much about where I'm going! So I figured I'll educate myself about where I'm going and share it with you. As we already know I'm flying to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the United States of America. I made a screenshot of google maps to give you an idea where it is located in the US. 

Tulsa is the second largest city in Oklahoma with almost 400,000 inhabitants (they are called Tulsans) and the county seat of Tulsa County. According to Tulsa's website "the name Tulsa was derived from "tallasi," a contraction of the Creek "Tullahassee" or "tallahassee," meaning "old town". When reading about Tulsa and Oklahoma it becomes quiet clear that that state and region is very conected to the native americans.

The weather in Tulsa is temperate with an average of 61 °F (16 °C). In spring and early summer though there usually are many thunderstorms, hail and even tornadoes are possible. The pre-arrival guide provided by TU even explains how to behave in case of a tornado. Luckily I'll only be there until winter. ;) However, Tulsa has over 250 sunny days per year! 

Thanks to Ms Semenow from TU who opened a Facebook group for all incoming international students this year I already was able to take a look what places are worth seeing and what food is great in Tulsa. Check out these two links she posted in the group: Tulsa things to do and Tulsa's 11 most iconic foods

I sure need to try that burger! It looks delicious. :) I'm not so sure though that I would be able to eat it completly or if I might die from a heart attack trying.

I hope you now have a little bit of an idea where I'm going. Personally I'm super excited to make my own experience’s there and report about it and take a lot of pictures to make my posts livelier. I like to use my own pictures for this blog since it is supposed to be rather personal and also I don't want to step on anybody’s toes for using their pictures on my blog (gotta be careful with copyright there!).

Thank you for reading!

Jenny Sch.

30 Day Countdown

Hello to everyone from a super excited Blogger!

I can't believe it but there are only 30 days left until I leave for Tulsa. The last days I have been running around, trying to get everything organized. It has been seriously stressful! However, I have an apartment and roommate, I got a billion immunization shots, I finally booked my flight last week and went to get my visa approved on Wednesday. And I spent a bunch of money on all of that...

Now, what is happening in the last 30 days? A lot! I have one more exam, 2 1/2 papers to write, I have to figure out my insurance for my time abroad, I'm moving from my current apartment to a different one, I'm going to see as many people I love before leaving and then I need to pack and say good bye. Moving is this extra big stress factor during this last month but it needs to be done. It will be strange to not live in my apartment, in my room anymore. I have been living here for almost FOUR YEARS! This is the first place I lived at after school without my parents. On the other hand I'm excited for the new apartment too. I'll save some money and I'll have an amazing roommate. :) 

Talking about roommates: As I mentioned above, I already have a roommate and apartment where I'll be living in Tulsa. Her name is Charlie and she found me via Roommate Finder. Her roommate is moving out after the summer and Charlie will be graduating in December so time wise it is a great fit since I'll only be staying until December anyways. We skyped and emailed a little and she seems very sweet. :) The other students coming from Siegen are still waiting to be placed by housing but I'm sure that will also happen any day now. 

Now I need to get back to studying for my exam and organizing the last bits for my trip. :)

Thanks for coming by!

Jenny Sch.

My Semeter Abroad - What's happening?

Hello everyone :)

It has been a few weeks since I last posted. Or a month... However finally things are happening!

I completed my application for TU, the deadline for this application ended on June 1st and at the end of last week... (Drum roll please!) ... I GOT ACCEPTED! I'm officially a TU student and am super proud to even have a student email. 

With being accepted a new part of the application process opened up. I now need to apply for Housing, figure out my insurance, make sure that I have the required immunizations and also book a flight. I won't get into too much detail about the insurance part. This is something everyone needs to figure out for themselves depending on their insurance situation. All students attending TU are however required to have proper insurance of a certain standard. If you don't have insurance or your insurance doesn't meet the requirements, TU will sign you up for their insurance program.

Applying for Housing is the part which excites me the most. TU has many great Housing opportunities on campus. You can choose between several Residence Halls and Apartment Villages. You can check them out here: TU Housing 

Personally I find the Residence Halls "Jane Lottie Mabee" and "LaFortune" very intriguing. Living in a Residence Hall means living in dorm rooms which you typically share with another person. Yes, that might actually be difficult in some ways or others but I'm fantasizing about this US college live and for me a dorm room is part of that. "Jane Lottie Mabee" is an all-girl Residence Hall and "LaFortune" is part of the International Living Community (ILC). Both I think sound really interesting. 

On the other hand: The Apartment Buildings allow more independence. You still usually don't live alone but with more space and they also seem to be really nice accommodations as well. It is a hard decision where you want to live if you can't really see the places for yourself. So I went ahead and applied for "Jane Lottie Mabee", "LaFortune" and some of the Apartment Villages as well. I will just let fate decide where I will live during my stay in Tulsa. I'm confident that everything will fall into place.

Last but not least I applied for financial help through the university. The deadline is June 15th. All fingures crossed! It would really be helpful to get some financial help this way.

Thank you for reading! 

Jenny Sch.

How I found the rabbit hole and fell through it

Hello Everyone :) 

After I talked to you last week about who I am, what this blog is all about and why I decided on a blog, I today want to tell you how I stumbled upon this opportunity and suddenly had landed a semester abroad. This might sound weird to you: "stumbled" & "suddenly"; But that's really how it was. Let me explain!

In the middle of February when classes had finished, one of my profs wrote an email via the course directory telling us that there were open slots for a four month internship at the University School in Tulsa. This School is a private school on the campus of the University of Tulsa (TU) for especially gifted children for age 3 to 8th grade. I was super excited! Four months, from the end of August to December? An internship at an American school? This was exactly what I dreamed of when I imagined the perfect semester abroad. Further she wrote in her email that we should contact another Prof at our university if we were interested. I immediately emailed him. After some forth and back I had little more information that I had before. Now I knew that this would be the first round of this program. I was happy to hear though that said prof wanted to support my application for the program. He sent me to Ms Kurz of our International Office.

For everyone from the University of Siegen who is interested in spending a semester abroad at our partner university, you should definitely go see Ms Kurz. She is really nice and will be able to explain all the details about applying etc. You can find her information on our website. Her office is in the SSC. Be sure though to come prepared with all the questions you want to ask her. I personally was so excited about everything and Ms Kurz so fast paced that I forgot to ask her some questions I should have asked. Also: She isn't really big in answering a lot of emails. The best thing is to go and see her in person.

After my meeting with Ms Kurz I had to apply online via a platform from the University of Siegen. Once you apply online and hand in your printed out application, you have to wait and see. I actually don't know how it all works in other cases but in my case there weren't a lot of other students applying for this program and since the prof supported me it was basically a done deal. In any case the university moves on by nominating people for the different programs and sending these nominations to Tulsa. So got my nomination email and didn't really know what to do next. So I waited. There wasn't really a lot I could do. At this point I still only knew that I applied for a four month program in Tulsa where I could intern at the University School. 

Finally I received an email from Tulsa! Turns out I needed to apply again but this time at TU. Only that the deadline was only two weeks ahead on May 1st and there were Easter Holidays in between. I hustled to get everything I needed for the application but that was seriously not possible in this time frame. The trickiest part was the "signature verification form" which needed to be send by mail and the "financial resources" document which needed to be signed and stamped by a bank. 

You can imagine that I was slightly panicking especially since the application website kept reminding me that I wouldn't be able to change anything in my application after the due date. I had sent my signature verification form more than a week ago but it didn't show up in my application. What to do? So I simply called. I was more than relieved to hear that the due date would be pushed to the end of the moth since the nominations for Fall Term came in rather late.

During the last three weeks I emailed with a very nice lady from Tulsa who was able to give me some more information on ... well... EVERYTHING! I will actually be an exchange student at TU and I'll be participating in a Student Teacher Course. Part of this course is co-teaching at one (or if I wish more schools) and also a weekly seminar where all student teachers exchange their experiences. Thanks to the partnership of the University of Siegen and TU I don't have to pay tuition but I will need to pay for housing which is app. 3000 $ according to the TU website. She also said that it is definate that I can come to Tulsa as long as I hand in all the information required and got my visa.

And that's where I am now! 

Thank you for reading this super longe post ;)
Jenny Sch.

First things first!

Hello World! 

My name is Jenny, I'm a 23 years young German and with this blog I want share the experiences I'll make in my semester abroad. In the end of august I hope to travel to Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA and spent the fall term 2014 at the University of Tulsa (TU). 

I decided to blog about my upcoming adventure for a few reasons. The main reason is that I want to document the things that I'll experience because I want to have something that will remind me of my time there. 

Now you might wonder: Why blog then? Scrapbooking or a diary would do the trick too! Well I've found blogging very intriguing for some time now but never really knew how to start or what to write about. So I want to take this opportunity and find out if blogging is something I will enjoy and more importantly if people like to read what I write.

Another reason is that I hope this blog will be helpful for other students who want to spend their semester abroad in Tulsa. The University of Tulsa is the partner University of the University of Siegen where I currently study which is why quiet a number of students spend their semester abroad there. Being in this position I'm curious about the place I'm leaving to. Hopefully with this blog I will be able to satisfy the curiosity 

I'm already super excited for my semester abroad and to share my adventure with you. I even started a new pinboard on pinterest for blogging since I really don't know anything about blogs, except how to read one. If you have any tips for me (or whatever else is on your mind), I would be happy to hear from you! 

Thank you for reading my first post! :) 

With excitement and happiness from Germany,

Jenny <3