From Oxford To Germany: Miami Alum On Life Overseas

By Scott Sutton

Miami University journalism student

Mastering your native language is difficult; mastering a second language takes special skill.

2016 Miami University alum Wesley Dockery translated his mastery of German, his second language, into a job in Germany.

Dockery graduated from Miami with a bachelor's degree in political science and a minor in German. He works in Bonn at Deutche Welle (DW), a media outlet that produces news and information about Germany for an international audience.

Dockery spoke over Skype last Wednesday to Miami students and faculty about his experiences at the international news outlet.

During his job interview for DW, Dockery was asked about German politics and German news. He was asked to write short news pieces from short scripts of German news organizations to show his knowledge of the language as well as the current headlines.

Although he was not given a full time position from the interview, they gave him a two-month internship to prove himself. During this internship, his duties consisted of attending big news room meetings with almost every department around the world. The meetings were strictly spoken in German.

"It was a fairly overwhelming situation," Dockery says. "Being there as an intern and having everyone speak in German, it was a lot. But I did it, I was able to keep up."

Dockery now works as a full time journalist at DW with his own office. Lately he's been covering the refugee crisis in Europe. A team of reporters has been producing stories about the situation in French, Arabic, English, Italian, and German. Dockery works alongside an English speaking journalist from India, one journalist from Syria, and another journalist from Egypt.

However, the toughest part for Dockery is not work-related, but home-related.

"Registering your address is the biggest pain in the butt," Dockery says. "You need a landlord to sign a document saying that you can live there but its hard to find one who would do that for you. In order to get a bank account or a cell phone you need to have a home address."

Sascha Gerhards teaches German at Miami and attended the Skype session. Gerhards has some experience on the other side of the landlord situation in Germany.

"I was a landlord and when renting apartments, you generally have a problem with people not paying their rent on time or not paying at all," says Gerhards. "Landlords in Germany are skeptical about renting out to people that they don’t know. There is a shortage of rental place, depending on where you are in Germany. It is a safer bet for a landlord to rent out to someone who is from Germany and speaks German."

Even with his struggles, Dockery has begun to settle into life in Bonn. He says his favorite part of his day, which he says is different from the United States, is that once he leaves work, he leaves work. Dockery says he appreciates that he's not expected to take his work home with him.

Dockery would love to stay in Bonn and continue to work at DW for the foreseeable future. His hope is to take on similar projects to the one he is working on now.

Photo: Deutsche Welle provides news, as well as German language instruction and information about Germany, to an international audience.