Adrienne Ruth
E-Union
15
My name is Adrienne Ruth and I am a junior at Occidental College (Oxy), in Los Angeles, California. I am majoring in Diplomacy and World Affairs (DWA), with a concentration in security and a minor in Japanese studies. For most of my life I have lived abroad, and this has helped guide my interests in international relations and shape my perspective of the world.
I was born at the Air Force Academy in Colorado; from there my family proceeded to live in Colorado Springs, Mississippi, Florida, Japan, California, Virginia and currently in Turkey. I have spent the last three summers with my parents in Turkey, having the opportunity to have two summer hire jobs and a State Department internship at the American Embassy in Ankara. It has been a great experience and has given me the chance to discover career opportunities I would have previously never known about nor considered.
It is traditional for most DWA majors to either study abroad or attend the Oxy at the United Nations program, and when the time came I decided to go abroad. However, I was stuck with the dilemma of where, limited by language and no real desire to return to Japan, I was seeking something new and different. I went to my school’s study abroad office, and shortly thereafter was introduced to the European Union program. I knew almost immediately that this was the program I wanted to do: it applied to my studies, was a new place, and gave me the opportunity to learn a new language and travel.
So far, I love the program and Freiburg. I honestly could not imagine being in any other place. Freiburg is the ideal place for students and studying abroad, and each day I find something new while commuting to and from Vauban to the IES Center. The tram system is one of my favorite things about the city because it provides easy access throughout Freiburg. My second favorite thing about Freiburg has to be the market by the Münster! Even if I am not buying anything it is a nice place to use my hour lunch break to wander.
Classes have also been intriguing it is great to be exposed to a whole new set of topics, branching out from the limited subject matter of the DWA program at Oxy. Besides German 101, I am taking European Political Cultures, EU and the Muslim World, European Foreign and Security Policy Analysis, and Integrative Seminar 450. I think hands down my favorite class would be European Political Cultures because it is a subject I was recently exposed to, and I am enjoying breaking down each of the individual member states cultures to understand how an overall European culture is made. It also makes the field trips more fascinating by either studying the culture and going to the country or vice versa seeing the country and studying the culture afterwards.
Speaking of field trips, I loved our first trip to Berlin and Prague. However, I am most excited for my trip to the southeast to visit Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. I think it will provide me valuable information in relation to my concentration as these countries have had a significant historical background in a security context. Overall, I am extremely excited to see what the rest of the semester has in store for me, education-wise and culturally.
Sydney, Australia
Here is a picture of me participating in Shichi-Go-San (七五三. "Seven-Five-Three"). It is a traditional rite of passage and festival day in Japan for three- and seven-year-old girls and three- and five-year-old boys, held annually on November 15 to celebrate the growth and well-being of young children.