Participants
Manuela ThielHumboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Born in Magdeburg in 1975. After completing a one year AuPair stay in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1995, I took up my studies at Humboldt University in Berlin and have since been wandering between the worlds of American Studies, Political Science, and Business Administration, trying to interlink these worlds whereever and whenever possible. Thanks to a DAAD-scholarship I was able to live and study at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA in 1997/98. In the spring of 2000 yet another semester abroad followed with the Erasmus-program in Spain at the Universidad del País Vasco in Vitoria. Having finished my Master's thesis (titled: American Indians and U.S. Higher Education: Between Cultural Assimilation and Self-Determination), I am now in the process of completing my final exams before hopefully graduating in September of this year.
My study interests range from American politics to various aspects of the multicultural North American society with some focus on Native American culture and literature. Through the latter I have found to the wonderful books by Sherman Alexie, but I also love reading the works of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. though I am still just at the beginning of exploring them all.
Practical experiences include a summer job at Six Flags Over Georgia, giving me a glimpse at the American theme park industry, and tutoring/teaching English, German, and Math in Germany and Spain. I also interned as a student advisor at the International Programs and Exchanges department at my host university in Bellingham. For almost three years now I have been working as a student assistant at a Volkswagen-Foundation sponsored project at Humboldt University.
Chair: Session II
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