Year at UMSL instills lifelong lessons for German exchange student

UMSL Daily

Vivien Kneisel has fond memories of the months she spent in St. Louis partway through her academic journey at her home university in northwest Germany. “Once a Triton, always a Triton,” Kneisel says. She is graduating from Hochschule Bremen with a degree in international management this spring. (Photos courtesy of Vivien Kneisel)
Sometimes a step outside one’s comfort zone is really a giant leap – like when Vivien Kneisel moved out of her parents’ house in the summer of 2015.
“I didn’t just move out – I also moved into a new country on a new continent,” recalls Kneisel, who is from Germany.
As she settled into her new apartment at the University of Missouri–St. Louis that August, she missed home and her family and friends. But she also found a community of people who could relate to what she was going through – students from Brazil, Saudi Arabia and many other places in the world.
Vivien Kneisel (wearing cape) made friends with people from all over the world during her two semesters at UMSL.
“We were all missing the obvious things but also our local food, our daily routine, our hobbies – and we all shared that and together found a way to cope with all of that,” Kneisel says.
Now, looking back on the two semesters she spent as an exchange student at UMSL, she considers the experience one of the richest of her life.
“I know that it will always be part of me,” she says. “I met amazing people that became close friends, people that changed my opinion towards different topics and people that gave me a broader view, a bigger perspective, so that I can see the world through more than just my eyes.”
Kneisel also experienced a whole different approach to education. In Germany she’d grown accustomed to a very individual focus, along with a ...

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