Alumni Voices
Brianni Lee ' 20
Concentration: German Studies
Allied concentration: Philosophy
Secondary field: History and Literature
I first got interested in Germanic studies because of my background in classical music. I came into college without a specific career goal in mind and wanted to use my time in college to deeply engage with the humanities. My studies in the German department gave me exactly what I wanted. Germanic studies became a unique and excellent basis for me to branch out to other fields of humanities, while I was immersing in the fascinating world of the German language, literature, and historical and cultural studies. As I found myself drawn more to the field of philosophy, wanting to specialize in German philosophy and intellectual history, my background in the German language and literature allowed me to form unique perspectives in my research inquiries and my analysis of certain philosophical texts. As I prepare to graduate from my master's program at the University of Cambridge and work in the field of law, I know that my background in Germanic studies has helped me explore various interests that I had and will continue to be a rich source of inspiration.
Brooke Istvan '19
Concentration: Applied Mathematics
Secondary field: German Studies
My experience with German and the German department at Harvard is one of the things for which I am most thankful. I came into Harvard with a very small amount of prior knowledge and knew I was in a place where I could either drop the language without ever having a functional knowledge of it or I could challenge myself to master the guttural r's, w's that sound like v's, and v's that sound like f's. After shopping a class my freshman year I accepted that challenge and never looked back, eventually earning a secondary in German. I decided to take the opportunity to participate in Vienna summer study abroad program after my freshman year of German classes. We spent time in Vienna and Berlin learning about arts, culture, and history. That summer opened my eyes to the power of language, immense cultural beauty, and the world we all share. I developed friendships with some of my favorite people from Harvard that lasted all four years and Professors Hamilton and Parkes became some of my most supportive mentors at Harvard.
I was so inspired by the summer that I knew I wanted to go back to a German speaking country and understand what it was like to actually live and work. Ruth Sondermann in the German department helped me accomplish this goal and recommended that I apply for the Ruhr Fellowship, an incredible opportunity for anyone pursuing a STEM or business field to spend a summer in the Ruhr valley in Germany learning about the local economy and culture and getting very unique and valuable work experience (open to anyone regardless of German skill level). Through the program we visited companies, met with prominent CEO's and politicians, took German classes, and were treated to some wonderful lunches and dinners with people dedicated to the revitalization and promotion of the Ruhr Valley. All of the fellows were also paired with different companies in the region to get some work experience. I was placed with a shipping company where I got to work on strategy and investments along China's belt and road initiative all while speaking German. I am forever grateful I was able to spend the summer after my Sophomore year as a Ruhr fellow because of the perspective I gained as a global citizen.
I am writing this now as I sit in Tel Aviv, Israel where I am working on a research project after 2.5 months of travel through South and South East Asia. I think learning language is so important because it allows us to communicate with others and begin to understand the world beyond our own experiences. The two summers I spent abroad through the German department not only instilled a love for travel in me but empowered me to have the confidence to live abroad and learn how others live. Even here in the Middle East, I somehow find myself speaking German every day to the German-Israeli man who lives next door. I am sad that my time with the Harvard German department is over but I am so thankful for all it taught me! p.s. to future German students: Take one of the classes where you put on a play in German. It is one of my favorite (and maybe most embarrassing) memories of Harvard!
Becky Jarvis '19
Concentration: Linguistics
Allied concentration: Mathematics
Secondary field: German Studies
My internship, working near Berlin at the Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism, was excellent. I ran a laboratory experiment on agreement processing of native and non-native speakers of German, and wrote data cleaning/analysis script in R and programmed the experiment via DMDX. I found the experience really helpful both in gaining research experience and in clarifying my interests within my chosen field of study; this gave me the ability to focus my later concentration coursework more specifically around my interests. More broadly, using German every day at work really helped me to improve and gain confidence in my German. I also had a really fantastic summer--working in a foreign country and having the opportunity to travel and explore also helped me to grow as a person.
Ana Olano '19
Concentration: Applied Mathematics
Language citation: German
The Department of Germanic Languages and Literature was a defining feature of my Harvard career, and my involvement began through the department’s incredibly supportive internship program. In my freshman spring, before even taking my first German course, I knew I wanted to do research abroad. Ruth Sondermann, the department’s internship program director, was quick to set up a meeting with me and, in my first visit to the department, seemed to give me an exhaustive set of information about funding sources and internships in Germany and other German-speaking countries. I worked under the guidance of Dr. Astrid Salzmann, with PI Dr. Wolfgang Breur, at the Department of Finance/Lehrstuhl für Betriebswirtschaftslehre, insbs. Betriebliche Finanzwirtschaft. I researched investment tendencies in the context of national culture and corporate social responsibility by creating a survey and sampling from United States, Canadian, German, Indian, and Colombian populations. This research was more aligned with my business interests; I hope to pursue an MBA after a few years of work experience! Following my superb experience in Aachen, Germany as part of the UROP summer research program at RWTH Aachen Universität, I was eager to continue my German studies. Upon my return to campus, Ruth Sondermann and the department promptly helped and welcomed me in. She and Dr. Lisa Parkes, the department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies, guided me in determining the best level of German coming in (and this level of personal guidance continued throughout the duration of my studies). The incredible quality of instruction in all of my courses and profound care for students present through the entire department staff led me to pursue and complete a citation in German. On my Commencement day, I was proud of my progress and humbled at the experience of my education at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature when I was able to understand Chancellor Angela Merkel’s speech—before the English translator spoke.
Karl Aspelund '17
Concentration: Environmental Science & Public Policy
Secondary field: Economics
I took German out of an intrinsic interest, mostly, but it has become very useful to me in the most practical way: after graduating college, I ended up working with two German economists as a research assistant. Their research focused on the labor markets of Germany and Austria, and my ability to read German was an important plus that I didn't really know about until I walked into the job interview and they asked me to read an excerpt of a FAZ article!
I am now headed to a PhD in economics at MIT and will be focusing on labor economics and environmental economics. A level of German proficiency is very useful for both these fields, because there are many interesting labor market policies on which there is a renewed focus in the US (e.g. Mitbestimmung, the practice of having worker representatives of corporate boards), and due to the flurry of attention to environmental policies in Germany, including die Energiewende. Migration (climate-induced or not) is another area of renewed focus in Germany. There are some great sources of data that are mostly only accessible with some language proficiency. German opens rather unexpected doors!
Nathaniel Ver Steeg '17
Concentration: Applied Mathematics
Secondary field: German Studies
Completing a secondary in German was one of the highlights of my time at Harvard. The instructors were genuinely interested in helping students learn, and the small class sizes made for a fun and productive environment, with lots of emphasis on practice and discussion. Outside of classes, the Kaffeestunde and Stammtisch gatherings offered even more chances to work on speaking and listening and were a great way to connect with other students and faculty and hear about their experiences with the German language and culture. For me, the department offerings also opened up many new academic and career opportunities. After my first-year course, I went to Munich for a summer language program and enjoyed it so much that I returned to Munich to study for a semester during my junior year. Later, I worked as a research assistant in Vienna, and my first job out of college was in Cologne, where I lived for over a year. Many of my best friends and favorite memories have come from my time studying and working abroad, and I'll always be grateful to the Harvard German department for preparing me for and supporting me through these experiences.
Michael Ardeljian' 13
Concentration: German Studies
Allied concentration: History
Warum denn habe ich Deutsch gelernt? Why did I learn German? When I arrived on Harvard’s campus and jumped into my German studies with this department, my German educational experience took off in a completely new direction. Introductory courses lucidly and entertainingly built a foundation of technical understanding at a tremendous rate. And then, I began reading German philosophers. It was a fantastic department filled with wonderful professors and graduate students, who took my studies to a level of intellectualism that I had never before experienced with another language. This is the reason why I studied abroad with Duke in Berlin, and wrote historical research papers in German – publishing one in Simplicissimus, the Harvard College Journal of Germanic Studies – because I had stopped learning a language and began to live it. The Harvard German department helped me tremendously with my joint concentration thesis with the History department, prepared me for my oral honors exams that I did in German, and gave me the opportunity to translate Michael Sandel’s course “Justice” into German for edX.
As a law student at New York University, I worked for one summer at the United Nations in Geneva, and have just had my law school Note on German constitutional law published in the New York University Journal of International Law & Politics. The Note, Mann und Mann, Frau und Frau: The Jurisprudence and Democratic Theory of German Civil Partnerships, 49 N.Y.U. J. Int'l L. & Pol. 239 (2016), explores the contours and development of eingetragene Partnerschaften in Germany. These are same-sex civil partnerships augmented through judicial review without formal recognition of the right to gay marriage. I survey German federalism, jurisprudence, and the political philosophy theories of judicial review in a democracy to conclude that gay marriage's constitutional recognition in Germany is inevitable as an extension of the Bundesrepublik's notion of militant democracy. I credits my invaluable experience as a joint concentrator in History and Germanic Languages & Literatures for generating my interest in this legal thesis topic, as well as for equipping me with the skills to analyze and translate legal opinions by the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Germany's Federal Constitutional Court) to make my arguments. I look forward to continuing to employ his German concentration throughout his career.
Now a graduate of New York University School of Law, I am currently an Associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. I have worked on intellectual property and antitrust litigation, and focus currently on regulatory compliance and investigations work. I have also conducted research on German civil procedures.
Preston Copeland ' 11
Concentration: German Studies
Of course your professors are leaders in their fields, and of course you have access to prodigious resources—this is Harvard, after all. But in hindsight, what makes the German Department great are the very things that you, as an undergraduate, will blithely experience daily—class sizes of 5-15 students, genuinely caring professors who know you by name (or, more precisely, who simply know you), and a quality of instruction that most students in America don’t experience until graduate school (if they’re lucky). What seems facile at first glance but actually astonishes me the more I think about it is that I liked every single one of my classes in the German Department. In fact, I think that I took it for granted at the time—that a student would love all of his or her concentration courses.
Jordan Cotton '11
Upon arriving at Harvard I intended to pursue a Secondary Field in the Germanic Languages & Literatures department. I had learned German in high school and enjoyed it massively but thought at first that a degree in German would not be very practical. However, after enjoying my German classes far more than the rest, I realized that a creative and flexible student can make most any subject relevant to a variety of career paths and decided to follow my passion. After an internship in Germany that both honed my language skills and padded my resume, I am now working as a management consultant to NASA and the space industry in Washington, DC. While I don't use German every day, it does come in handy tracking down research papers and in performing interviews on European topics. Outside of work, I have continued to seek out experiences in Germanic countries to continue my education. I just returned from a vacation to Finland and Denmark which made me wish I had taken advantage of the department's many Scandinavian language offerings.
Trevor James '11
Take German, even if you have no language requirement to fulfill or previous background in this language. I did so and became a concentrator in the long run, for the engaging and provocative courses offered by Harvard's German department. Learning German and reading German literature helped me to build concepts of value foreign to myself but nonetheless prescient. I grew and continue to grow and shift in my study of this literature.
Jasmine Ford '10
I always knew that I wanted to study German in college for the simple reason that I love the language! I had been taking it since high school and wanted to continue to build upon my previous learning. Initially, I thought I would have it as a secondary field, but after a while I noticed that the classes I took in the Germanic department were the ones that consistently held my interest and drew my eye in the Course Handbook! I also enjoyed being in a concentration small enough to where there were always multiple familiar faces in class! The neat thing about it is that there are so many directions one could take their studies in the department. For my senior thesis I got to examine how Afro-Germans mobilized a political culture through hip-hop and how they used their constructed 'Afro-German' identity to place themselves within the larger African Diaspora. I would encourage any student with an interest in German language, history, and/or culture to consider a concentration in German Studies! The faculty are all wonderful and welcoming, and being part of a small department gives students a chance to establish a familiar, supportive, and warm relationship with the professors that may not be as readily found in a larger department.