After two years of applications and anxiously waiting in Bielefeld, Germany, Vivien Kutscha found out she was accepted into a program that would allow her to study in America. 

She is part of the youth exchange program CBYX (Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange), a joint effort between the United States and Germany to allow young adults to experience other cultures. 

“I have a special process because I was applying for a scholarship, a political one from the German Bundestag and the U.S. Congress, called CBYX,” Kutscha said. “I applied in summer, and it was like half a year of applying and getting to the next round and to the next round because only one student out of 25 got the scholarship.” 

She was chosen out of hundreds of applicants and had to wait a year after her application was accepted. 

“It was a lot of small steps, and in the end, the politicians chose me to come here,” Kutscha said. “The second year I spent preparing things and writing my application stuff so host families could see who I am, and in the end, I found a nice host family.”

Kutscha first decided to participate because she was interested in the American high school experience she saw on TV. 

“I’ve seen Americans on TV and movies, and it was just really interesting to me. I watched High School Musical, and I thought it was so cool,” Kutscha said. “It was about two years ago, and I thought maybe I could do something like that.”

She also hoped to gain a new and different experience. 

“I wanted to meet new people and experience a new culture, because things are pretty different here than they are in Germany.”

Kutscha quickly learned of the disparities between the U.S. and Germany.  

“I would say the people are the most different. I would say the people in Germany are not that open, and here, everybody wants to talk to you and meet you and know you,” she said. “Like as soon as I arrived at my first class, everybody was like introducing themselves and trying to get to know me.”

She currently lives with her host family, senior Vanessa Jara and her mom Plamena Zaharieva. 

“Adding another member to our family brought more responsibilities for us. We had to guide Vivien through the school system, and also educate her on some cultural differences,” Zaharieva said. “We had to establish house rules to make sure we all have the same understanding.”

“Also, it’s a lot of getting used to the cultural norms and they’re learning from you about your country and you’re learning from them about their country, so every day is a learning experience in some way,” Jara said. 

Through learning about each other’s countries, they found some similarities. 

“[Vivien] shared about the German school system, some family traditions and food. Her family is originally from Poland, so we found out a lot of common things since I am also from a Slavic country,” Zaharieva said. “She could even understand some words when I spoke in Bulgarian with my daughter.”

They also found some differences. 

“The school system in Germany is different- the schools are smaller, and also it’s a lot more rigorous in some ways- a lot of things are chosen for you. In the U.S., we have the freedom with our electives and the difficulty of the courses we want to take,” Jara said. “Also, outside of education, culturally, I think there is a lot of freedom in Germany in some ways that we don’t have here in the U.S. and we also have freedoms that they don’t have.”

Kutscha thinks that school in Germany is harder than it is in the United States. 

“I would say German school is pretty hard and in our exams, we don’t have multiple choice, we just have to write essays for like seven hours straight and we still don’t finish, so it’s pretty hard in Germany,” Kutscha said. 

While she has come to appreciate certain things about America, there are still others she prefers the German way.

“My favorite thing about America is probably the food. Just not the bread. You just have toast,” Kutscha said. “We have so much better bread in Germany.”

When she returns to Germany, Kutscha knows what she will tell her family and friends. 

“I would tell them probably that it’s really different,” Kutscha said. “I love the high school, and that I’m really going to miss all the people I met here.”