Kirstin Rinke: Living in Vienna

I think a strength of mine is I really try to be friendly to everyone I meet, and this helps with meeting new people. In terms of weaknesses, I would say sometimes I am afraid to push myself outside of my comfort zone to do things without my usual friends or ways.

In the beginning of the exchange, I didn’t make a huge effort to push myself outside my comfort zone. After about a month I knew I had to change this, which I did. Now I have met new amazing people and done things I wouldn’t have normally done on my own. The overall experience here has gone from good to great with that one simple change. Saying yes to invitations that I was uncertain about and making an effort to make plans with different people really helps.

I think I have learnt to be more relaxed in my thinking and have improved my patience. It is easy to get worked up about small things when something goes wrong. With a bit of a bumpy start living in Vienna, it taught me how important it is to brush things off. I think I have a more easygoing mentality then I did previously when something goes wrong. Overall this makes my day to day life much happier and peaceful.

I hope to continue to push my boundaries with expanding my network and gaining new perspectives from different people and cultures.

Kirstin Rinke is a Bachelor of Business Administration student at Capilano University. Kirstin is currently studying abroad at FH Wien University of Applied Sciences WKW in Vienna, Austria.