‘World Citizen’ Slater tells of RCF Exchange lessons learned in Europe
Webb School of Knoxville Class of 2008 graduate Doug Slater now sees himself as a “world citizen” as a result of his experience as a Rotary Youth Exchange student in Europe in 2007, he told Rotary Club of Farragut members during a recent RCF meeting in Fox Den Country Club.
From September 2007 to August 2008, Slater stayed with three host families in the Bavarian towns of Freihaslach, where he lived for three months, and Hodstadt for eight months.
“It untethered me from viewing the contemporary issues,” said Slater, a senior software engineer with RaySearch Americas (radiation therapy software).
While living in Germany, Slater traveled all over Europe, skiing in the Alps and sailing in Holland. He was part of the Pfadfinder, the German equivalent of the Boy Scouts, and played the cello with the Neustadt Chamber Orchestra. He also attended three schools.
“The benefits were realized later,” he added, noting a “love of continual learning, traveling and finding a career path.”
Slater was introduced to a “huge expanse of freedom followed by … precipitous vulnerability,” adding he learned to “expect challenges” in life.
While he made friends in Germany, those challenges came in the forms of loneliness and isolation.
Slater said he took the trip to master the German language but confessed he did not succeed.
However, “In certain places of the world, you need to master the language to connect with people, but that was not the case in Germany,” he said.
Slater advised future RYE students to “consider your motive for going.”
