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In this episode, I'm speaking to Dikachi Chizim, who moved from Lagos, Nigeria to Freiberg, Germany for an MBA.
Germany isn't the typical destination for skilled Nigerian immigrants, especially in the past five years. According to Dikachi, even the Germans she met in Freiberg, a town of over 40,000 in Eastern Germany, were surprised she moved to their town to study. “Well, I came to study because tuition was free,” she says.
But the culture shock was dramatic. Now, this isn't surprising if you've been to both or any of the two cities. Lagos and Freiberg are different in every measurable way. From population to density to the economy to the urban character to the language.
“I was lost,” Dikachi says. Getting a student job became the unlikely path to understanding the language and how the country worked.
In this conversation, Dikachi and I chat about dealing with the contrast between Nigerian "African time" and famed German punctuality. We also explore:
How her workplace became more valuable for integration than her international student community
Passing her Nigerian cultural heritage to her German-born daughter
The surprising differences between Eastern and Southern Germany's social climate
Why optimism might be an immigrant's most valuable asset
Official Links
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One Ask
If you found this story helpful, please forward or share it to one immigrant out there.
What Immigrants Can Learn from Derek Sivers’ “Useful Not True”
Sivers’ central premise is that our beliefs should be judged by their usefulness rather than their absolute truth. Sivers’ approach is valuable because he suggests we needn’t declare one cultural perspective right and another wrong. Instead, we should ask: “Which perspective serves me better in this context?”
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