The international bubble
It can be quite challenging to break out of what I call the international bubble. This refers to the fact that international
students tend to socialize almost exclusively with other international students. I know that I am guilty of this. I hang out with a few Germans every now and again, but almost all of my friends here are internationals. This is partly a result of the fact that we all did GO Konstanz together. I have also made friends with other internationals, who were not in that program, because it is quite simply easier. We already have something in common, which is that we are in a foreign land with limited language ability and cultural understanding of the native.
I know I am definitely not alone in this, because all of the other international students seem to hang out with other internationals. But there are exceptions, such as my friend Henrich. He is from Sweden, but he is now dating a German student from the HTVG. This is unusual though, because internationals rarely even date outside of the international community. Another exception is a friend from Heidelberg, who is a reversed situation and seems to hang out almost entirely with international, rather than German, students. These are the few exceptions however.
To break out of this bubble would be quite difficult, because there are simply so many internationals in Konstanz. The university is something like 15% foreign and exchange students, and the city has a lot of immigrants that are not students. This makes it easy to meet a lot of non-Germans. It would be nice to meet more locals, but I actually quite like being part of this community. It feels like one is much more of a citizen of the world this way. It also gives me a sense of just how interconnected and cosmopolitan Europe has become. Many of the non-German Europeans that I know say that being part of international community has made them feel like citizens of the EU a lot more than anything they had done before. This is quite interesting since EU citizenship was created almost 30 years ago, before any of the students I know were even born.
Another thing that brings this community together is the fact that virtually every single person speaks fluent English, but very little German. This means that we take classes together, in English, and already have a thing that sets us apart from the GErmans. This is not to say that many Germans can’t speak English. It's actually quite the opposite, almost everyone at the Uni can speak English. But English still serves to separate internationals from the Germans, and bind us together.
