Judith Dükert – Cisco, Texas

During my last school year in Germany I was often thinking about what to do after finishing school. On one hand I wanted to study at another place than my hometown Berlin. On the other I didn’t want to give up playing volleyball.

Then I found the website of VolleyUSA and thought it would be perfect for me to go to college in the USA because I could combine playing volleyball with studying! There was a lot of work to do before I finally got a scholarship, many things were confusing, but Sandra always helped me and so she made it happen and I got my scholarship!

I left Germany in the middle of August to start pre-season at college. During the first weeks we practiced about three times a day and played lots of scrimmages. Sometimes it was hard because although we all were sore the coaches expected us to give 100% on every day.

When school started our conference games began. The atmosphere at our home games was just awesome! We always had the great support of the whole band and the cheerleaders. Everything was so much different and more professional than it was in Germany. To my mind it is just amazing to experience all the school pride and all the other differences.  At weekends we travelled a lot to play tournaments, so I got to know lots of different places. The season was exhausting since it was difficult to deal with all the new classes and volleyball. But I got used to it pretty fast. Although it was sometimes stressful, I loved this time because we always had so much fun on the trips and on the court. Besides, many things got easier because the coaches helped to organize everything and the teachers were often sympathetic if you couldn’t manage to do your homework.

After our season ended at the end of October, we had more free time and could concentrate more on studying.

My first semester is almost over now and I can certainly say that there were some ups and downs in the last months. But there were definitely lots of great moments. Almost everything is different here, but it is wonderful to live here and to experience the American lifestyle. That’s why I am very thankful that I have the opportunity to study here! I can only recommend that everyone who has the chance to study in the US should use this great opportunity to broaden his mind!