A bit nervous, a lot excited

Hi everyone! My name is Gao Lyuyuechen, but you can call me Gao or Kouro. I’m from China, and I’m a second-year master’s student at Tsinghua University, where I study communication. This semester, I’m studying communication sciences at LMU Munich. I still can’t quite believe I’m here!

My love for exchange life started a few years ago. I studied Japanese during my bachelor’s degree and spent one semester at Sophia University in Japan. At that time, I was getting a bit tired of life at Tsinghua. It felt great to leave behind all the familiar people and places in China and go somewhere completely new. Everything felt fresh, interesting, and exciting. I could also take a break from the stressful atmosphere back home, where everyone seemed to be competing either for a place in graduate school or for internships. I met some wonderful friends in Japan, who we even met again after the exchange ended. But I took too many classes and hardly traveled at all, which was really a pity.

So, with wonderful memories and a few regrets from my exchange in Japan, I promised myself that if I got another chance to study abroad, I would explore more.

That’s why I’m here, exchanging again. But why Munich? In fact it is the only option. My university only had a few exchange programs, and LMU seemed like the best choice. But the more I thought about it, the more excited I got. I’ve never spent much time in Europe, and I want to see what everyday life here is really like. I hope to meet people from different places, make friends, and learn about cultures that are new to me.

Another reason is the language. I see it as a little language experiment. I arrived knowing almost no German. So what happens when I try to live in a country without speaking the language? Will I face some language barriers or maybe it won’t be that bad? Will I learn through language courses, or through shopping, taking the train, and talking to people? Which words I’ll need first, and how much German I can learn in half a year? Unlike Japanese and English which I learnt years from classes, this time I have to guess what someone means from their face or the situation, which is a completely different experience. It can be scary, but also fun. Moreover, I love documentaries, and I’d like to make them in the future, so learning how to connect with people without a shared language matters to me.

Of course, I worried about coming here. As a second-year master’s student, I could have stayed in China and looked for internships. Finding a job is not easy right now. But still, I didn’t want to miss a chance like this.

For the next three months, I want to travel as much as I can, hopefully with new friends. I also want to cook more—not just to feed myself, but to enjoy it! I recently joined an orchestra, and in November we will spend a whole weekend outside Munich rehearsing and living together. I’m really looking forward to that. We also have a concert planned for February, and I hope my new friends can come.

And one more plan: I want to make videos about my life here. I’ve been saying that for over a month without doing anything! I tried a bit using AI to edit a video, but the result wasn’t good. Well, I have three months to keep trying. Let’s see what happens!