For Ella Griffith, this year’s fluctuations in travel and uncertainty on the global scale hit home. Ella is a former Youth Diplomat (2018-2020) and was one of 25 participants from the U.S. selected for the Congress-Bundestag Vocational Youth Exchange Program in 2020. With hopes of heading to Germany this past fall, Ella’s plans quickly changed as the COVID-19 pandemic forced the program to take on a new virtual format.
Ella recently finished participating in the international exchange during her gap year. This month, she heads to the University of Notre Dame to study German and Molecular Biology.
She described her motivation for applying to the program stemmed from a childhood growing up in a military household stationed in Germany. Ella lived off-base with her family from ages nine to eleven and attended a German school. Her participation in the Congress-Bundestag program allowed her to take her German language skills to the level of native fluency.
After finding out about her acceptance in March of 2020, Ella was delighted but had reservations as global travel with the pandemic began to feel more uncertain. In November of the same year, Ella found out the program would occur in an online format where she would remain in the U.S. and engage with workshops, fellow students, and an intensive German language course instead. Though disappointed at not traveling overseas, Ella described the surprising benefits of the online medium. She engaged with the young German professionals and gained certification on her German language level.
“The Goethe Institut was my favorite and most helpful part of the program. German language proficiency was one of my goals as I wanted to speak on a native level which means understanding how to speak professionally and knowing colloquialisms as well.” Ella described her plans to study German as a second major with the hope of securing connections to have more opportunities to work and intern in Germany in the future. “Next summer, I dream I will be able to grab an internship at the Institute of Swiss Medicine.” She also spoke of the possibility of pursuing her higher education overseas.
When prompted about her experiences with Youth Diplomats, a greater story began to emerge. In Ella’s junior year of high school, she had applied to the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program for high school students. Due to difficulties in logistics, she could not attend that year, but in that same week, a teacher let her know about a new program through Gulf Coast Diplomacy, Youth Diplomats. She applied just in time, got accepted to the program, and served as a Youth Diplomat until her senior year of high school. She described how her time in the program helped prepare her for the next time she applied to the exchange, “The experiences we’ve had in Youth Diplomats taught us necessary skills in how to interact with people of different customs, cultures, and languages. The programming taught us to be flexible, spontaneous, and professional in interacting with International Visitors and working with our peers. All these things helped me in the next application process for Bundestag. The program came up in all my interviews and was a huge help because of that one word: diplomacy. They were looking for Americans who would be able to represent America in Germany. For anyone applying to a State Department youth exchange, being in Youth Diplomats is a huge boost. It’s already preparing you to be the person they want you to be in this program.”
– Eden Davenport, intern
