Being away from home for education is never easy. Julia Schepp, is a senior from Germany majoring in finance and economic at Drury University. Schepp is also on the Drury women’s tennis team. She took some time recently to talk about her life here and her experiences being an international student.

What brought you to Drury and why did you choose to study in the US rather than other countries?

First of all, I chose to study in the US because we don’t play tennis for the schools but only for clubs back in Germany. If I go to the universities back home, I will not have time to play a lot of tennis and play competitions. I love competitions so I thought it was a good idea to come to the US so that I can combine both tennis and studying.

How do you balance your busy tennis schedule and class work when English is not your first language?

Well, it is just about hard work I guess. I do not have a lot of free time so I always try to use it effectively. I usually study in the morning before classes, and we have practice in the afternoon. So I think it is just really about hard work for being an international student-athlete with such a busy schedule.

What are some advantages of being an international student here in the US?

I learned the language which is really important because English is important for everything. Also I learned the culture, it is pretty good to get another perspective and get out of the scope. When people only live in one country, they usually get only one perspective.

What are some difficulties of being an international student?

I would never get used to it from being away from my family and friends at home. I missed them from the first moment I got on the plane. Also the food, there are huge differences between the food here and back home.

Do you prefer to stay in the United States or go back to Germany after graduate?

I thought about this for a long time and I decided to go back because I just can’t image to live here for my whole life and not seeing my family. Let’s image when I’m here and my parents are sick, I can’t help them but I just want to be there for them because they are really important for me. I think also the working conditions are very different. Compare to here, the working condition at home is more relax, we have better employee standards and more vacations. Employers treat their employees a lot better. For example, they can’t just fire you in a short time period. They have to give you the notification at least one year before. That is really good so that employees can go find another job and they are actually force to help those employees to find jobs.