In four years at Hillsdale, Senior Emily Goodling went from barely speaking German to receiving the DAAD scholarship.
“It’s the equivalent of the Fulbright in Germany,” Assistant Professor of German Fred Yaniga said.
DAAD stands for Deutscher Academischer Austausch Dienst, or German Academic Exchange Service.
“It is the most prestigious scholarship in international studies,” Professor of German Eberhard Geyer said. “I’m not surprised she got it. I feel that she is among the best students I have ever had in my 34 years of undergraduate teaching. We are very proud of her, and the entire school should be proud of her.”
Goodling, a double major in classics and German, said she felt both disbelief and elation when she was notified of the news.
“These kinds of things are such a shot in the dark,” she said. “You hear that people sometimes get these things, but I never thought that it’d be me. It’s the chance of a lifetime.”
The DAAD will allow Goodling to study at the graduate level at a university of her choice in Germany. The scholarship provides for a living stipend, insurance coverage, and travel expenses. Tuition isn’t necessary, as all higher education in Germany is free.
“In America, we’re like, ‘We want to be independent!’” Goodling said. “In Germany, everything’s from the government.”
The living stipend for last year’s scholarship was 750 euros a month. According to Goodling, that number changes, depending on the location.
“Basically, they give me a lot of money,” Goodling said. “It’s not like I’m going to be a millionaire, but it’s a lot. They really want to make sure you can afford living there.”
Goodling said she plans to study comparative literature.
“‘Literature without walls’ is how I’ve heard it described,” she said. “It’s trans-cultural, trans-historical studies and it’s across different kinds of media. I’m planning on getting a degree, but I don’t want to get too specialized yet. I just want to read everything.”
The road to the DAAD started Goodling’s freshman year. On her third day at Hillsdale, Goodling ran into Yaniga at the freshman ice cream social at President Larry Arnn’s house. Goodling had fallen in love with German opera in her senior year of high school, and brought the topic up to Yaniga.
“He started talking about Richard Wagner and I was like, ‘What universe is this?’” Goodling said.
Yaniga said Goodling also brought up the topic of German novelist Thomas Mann.
“She told me she wanted to read his works in German someday,” he said. “It seemed unrealistic to me, but I told her to take a German class.”
Prior to her first year at Hillsdale, Goodling had very little experience with German. She signed up for her first German class in the second semester of her freshman year. Her only other language experience came from learning Latin and Greek in high school.
“It was the first time I had ever learned a modern language,” she said. “It was frustrating and exhilarating at the same time. With Latin and Greek, there isn’t an act of creation. With modern languages, you are creating and communicating with people. It’s like, ‘I’m having an interaction! I’m making myself understood!’”
Goodling jumped from 101 to 201 and from there to upper-level German classes.
“It’s really amazing,” Yaniga said. “She has a real talent for languages. She wrote a fantastic honors paper in German for us. She writes exceptionally well-crafted papers. She’ll be no pushover in graduate school. I have high expectations of success.”
Goodling said her ultimate goal is to teach.
“To me, giving other people the chance to have a voice is amazing,” she said. “I mean, it happened to me. I would be honored to give something back in a teaching position.”
Geyer said the faculty also hopes Goodling will pursue teaching.
“With a master’s degree in comparative literature, she’ll be able to cherry-pick any Ph.D. program in North America,” he said. “The faculty is confident that she will, in not such a long time, join our ranks.”
For now, Goodling said she’s still overwhelmed with the news of the award.
“I came here and I worked hard, and I was never expecting that hard work to pay off as much as it did,” she said. “I still can’t really believe it. It’s humbling.”
