University of Applied Sciences, Fulda

The Interviewees

From among thirty students, the writer chose nineteen to interview. Unfortunately, due to technical problems, two of the interviews were not clear

Nationality	Number
German	3
Italian	1
Bulgarian	1
Lithuanian	1
Romanian	1
Polish	1
Brazilian	1
Costa Rican	1
Canadian	1
American	1
Russian	2
Turkmenian	1
Philippino	1
Chinese	1
Ugandan	1

enough to work on. This choice, however, did not limit the study to certain nationalities. On the contrary, when possible, the writer interviewed two people from every nationality present. The nationalities are listed in Table 1.

All the interviews were done towards the end of the second term. This was because after the second term a lot of the students wanted to leave for their internship(most of them did their internship abroad), and many of them did not want to stay in Fulda after their return to Germany. Hence, the only possibility for the writer to interview was during the second term.

Characteristics of the Group

The age of the participants ranged from twenty two to forty. The same range existed among the interviewees (see Figure …). Though all the participants had already graduated from university, the age did play a role with regard to their experience of social life and, of course, the amount of courage and curiosity about living in a foreign country, considering the fact that for most of the participants it was the first time they lived in a foreign country.

Figure 1. The age range of the interviewees

From the nineteen interviewees, five were male and twelve female.

Apart from native speakers, the interviewees had learned English and German as a foreign language. The level of English for most interviewees, especially for those who came from eastern European countries, was lower
intermediate to higher intermediate. German, on the other hand, for some was a relatively new language, and most of the interviewees were at a lower-intermediate level when they started the program.
Although all participants in the group had a Bachelor's degree in one of the arts subjects, there was quite a variety among them. Table II is a list of the BA degrees of the participants.