Field Report of Parastoo Hosseini

Parastoo was born in Teheran, which is in Iran. She is a student since October 2014 and describes her first semester in Schmalkalden as following:

"After visiting Germany in 2012, I have decided to continue my higher education over here. I started searching different programs and universities through DAAD for almost 6 months. My list came down to 5 universities where I had fulfilled the requirements. Schmalkalden University of Applied Science was among the one that accepted me for the Master degree in International management and economies. The International office was always quick and supportive through emails from the day I received my acceptance letter. That made me more comfortable to choose the university. It was an opportunity to study in a new environment but having the experience of living abroad in a multicultural city like Dubai for long time made my move easier although I knew the language barrier will be a challenge. When university has given us the orientation and helped us with submitting documents for residence visa I was happy and grateful as I would never been able to do it myself without knowing German language. I found myself adjusted within few weeks in the city with a beautiful nature and nice locals. The classes were multicultural with students from different part of the world and also professors from different countries. So far, spending a semester in Schmalkalden has been a great experience, I attended an international night trying foods of different countries, exchanging information about different places and the economy growth of my classmates’ home countries also learning more about today international business. Everything is around dormitory with only few minutes-walks like supermarkets and restaurants. The university library is equipped with many books and journals where I can just find the business related books within one of the 2 floors. Also I have been using different activities offered by university such as Salsa classes and now looking forward for the next semester in Schmalkalden where I really enjoy studying…

If you are accepted by Schmalkalden University of Applied Science, don’t lose the opportunity, get as many information as you can online about student insurance, opening bank account and applying for residence visa which save you a lots of time at the beginning, have a positive attitude toward different cultures and be flexible to adapt to the local environment, learn basic German language, pack and come." - Parastoo Hosseini (19.01.2015)