The Hamburger Bahnhof Changed My Life

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While studying abroad for a year in Freiburg, Germany, my class took a weekend field trip to Berlin. I had been to many art museums, but the Hamburger Bahnhof is the one that changed my career trajectory. It was 2005, and I was 22 years old.

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My undergraduate work focused on constitutional law, social theory and policy, and German. 2005 was my "super senior" year, and I decided to fulfill my secondary German degree by going to a German university in the beautiful Black Forest. It was a singular year, and without question the most pivotal of my life. I was excited about going to law school after graduation, and I planned on becoming a judge.

But there was a part of me that liked art. In Freiburg I took an introductory Art History course for German freshman, and despite understanding exactly half of what was said, and surely sounding like an idiot attempting to articulate my thoughts, my feelings were clear: I was in love.

 

I was also lucky. And naively brave. After my year in Germany was over, I decided to move to Ireland with 400 euro in my pocket, 100 of which was promptly spent on a pair of unimaginably painful high heels. I think back on this time and realize how lucky I was - I walked onto UCD's campus and found my way to the art history department. There was a Masters program I had read about online, and I decided I wanted to attend. No matter that the deadline for admittance was the day before, and I had no money or art history experience. Or even final transcripts. (The school year in Germany runs through July, and this was August - it would be weeks before they were finalized.) I asked the secratary for an appointment with the head of the department, and for some insanely lucky reason, the dean agreed to squeeze me in between scheduled appointments. We ended up talking for a half hour, and by the end of the month I was in. By their request I estimated my final grades, and had to miss the first week of classes because I hadn't yet fully moved to Ireland yet. There were 13 people in my MA class, and all of them were Irish and had an undergraduate degree in Art History. I knew nothing.

 

What better way to learn than to jump in head first?