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Please create a profile slide answering these questions and include a picture of yourself:

1.  Name

2. Are you a 2 year or 3 year student?

3. Why did you choose this study abroad opportunity?

4. What do you hope to gain from this experience?

5. What else do you want us to know about you?

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Hitler, Nazis And World War II: How Germany Deals With Its Dark Past | Meet the Germans

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*Friday, 2/6 - 5:45 - 7:00 Zoom

*Friday, 3/6 - 5:45 - 7:00 Zoom

*Friday, 4/11- 5:45 - 7:00 Zoom -Sharon Olson -required paperwork for students

Final Meeting: Sunday, May 3, 2026 11:00 SPA Building for presentation with Andy Pasztor and then gathering at Rassleboch Kitchen and Beer Garden in Long Beach as a final meeting with German food

4020 Atlantic Ave -Long beach, CA 90807

http://www.rasselbocklb.com

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The Cold War Explained In 15 Minutes | Best Cold War Documentary

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Holocaust Museum LA | Inspire Humanity Through Truth

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Visit the first survivor-founded and oldest Holocaust museum in the U.S. with the largest collection of Holocaust-era artifacts on the West Coast

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Germany's hidden cracks: A nation at a crossroads | DW Analysis

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A five-part audio series that examines the rise of a new brand of extremism in Germany.

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'Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza’ with Peter Beinart | Why Is This Happening?

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Democracy under threat? The rise of the far-right in Germany | DW Documentary

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Traveling Germany – How to make the most of it

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Meet the Germans: German Sentences You Really Need!

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Learn German - German in Three Minutes  - Greetings in German

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How punctual are Germans for REAL? | Your Inner German

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5 classic German foods you should give a try

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German Food: From Schnitzel To Black Forest Gateau – Mahlzeit! | Meet The Germans

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Meet the Germans: Prost! How Germans Drink

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Why Germany is more than a beer country | Germany In A Nutshell

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German-Turkish Culture: Guest Workers, Doner Kebabs And Cultural Identity | Meet The Germans

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German Stereotypes: The Dirndl, Humor And German Efficiency | Meet the Germans

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The German School System | Meet The Germans

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Do you want to learn German easily ? We’ll help you with free German courses for levels A1 to C1 - using interactive exercises, audios, videos

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10 fun facts about health care in Germany: From home remedies to house doctors | Meet the Germans

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East Germany, The Berlin Wall And 30 Years Of German Reunification | Meet the Germans

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Berlin Wall 30 years on: Villages divided by the inner-German border | Focus on Europe

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Why are Germans voting for the far-right?

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Tips for securing your phone for reentry to US

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Tips for securing your phone for reentry to US

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Hi all, I know this is coming from AARP but I think it is helpful no matter what your age. It was recommended by someone in the study abroad office in my meeting today.

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These days, you could face extra scrutiny at the border when returning to the United States after a trip to another country.

Border agents may inspect your phone, laptop or other digital devices, and they could retain the electronics and/or the data within it - even if you're an American citizen. The measures are legal and don't require a warrant.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have previously been able to inspect your devices to, among other security concerns, determine "an individual's intentions" upon entering the U.S. and to potentially "combat terrorist activity."

In reality, the number of travelers who've been subjected to these searches has been miniscule. In fiscal 2024, it was less than 0.01 percent, according to the agency.

That's about 47,000 international travelers out of the 420 million processed at U.S. ports of entry. Media reports suggest that such searches are on the rise under Trump administration policies.

"It's important to note that I do think there's been an uptick," says Tom McBrien, counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) advocacy group in Washington. "I do think that uptake is targeted at people who have a higher chance of being politically active, of just being within this administration's crosshairs, whether it's because of their last name, or their skin color or their national origin or whatever. ...

"I don't think it's a guarantee that you're going to have your device searched at the border," he says. "But it's an increased risk."

More older adults expect to travel abroad this year

In late 2024, 44 percent of nearly 2,000 U.S. adults 50 and older planned to take at least one personal trip out of the country in 2025, up from 37 percent last year, according to an AARP survey released in March. Half said the travel would be a "bucket list trip."

Ted Chiaparri a New York-based partner at Duane Morris and head of the legal firm's immigration law group, thinks the chances that your device will be searched as you return remain small.

"It would be surprising to me that an individual would get stopped just because they made an offhand comment critical of President Trump," he says.

Two types of searches can happen

The CBP conducts two types of searches: A basic search generally involves an officer examining the contents of your device manually without the use of any special tech gear.

As the name hints, an advanced search goes further and in theory would occur when officers have a "reasonable suspicion" that you're a national security risk. Under this type of search, an officer can connect your phone or computer to external equipment to "review, copy and/or analyze its contents."

What you can do to minimize any encounters.

1. Get familiar with your rights

You're not expected to become a legal expert, but you do have rights. For example, the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution puts pretty strict boundaries on what law enforcement is able to do, McBrien says.

"A lot of those boundaries fall down," he says. "And essentially the rules are largely determined by the courts," which can vary by jurisdiction.

McBrien recommends learning about the area you're flying or driving into as you return to the U.S. and trying to evaluate the legal and political climate. Of course, if you have to travel somewhere, it's unlikely you'll dramatically alter the route because of politics.

2. Turn off your device

Because of a wrinkle in constitutional law, an agent can't force you to type in your password or PIN to unlock the device, McBrien says. But nothing technically stops an agent from pressuring you to unlock the device with a thumbprint or face scan.

If you turn off your phone before going through security, the only way to get past the lock screen when powering it up is by entering a password. That potentially makes it more difficult for the agent.

Meanwhile, if your phone doesn't already have a passcode, consider adding one before you travel.

3. Just say no

As a U.S. citizen, you have the right to say, "No" if a border agent asks you to unlock your device. Moreover, as a citizen you cannot legally be banned from entering the country under such circumstances, a right not afforded to noncitizens.

4. Be aware: Agents can retain your devices

While border agents can't bar you from entering, they can seize your device and, with cause, hold it for an indeterminate length of time. What's more, the CBP can retain copies of information obtained during a search and hold it for up to 15 years.

"Weighing the relative advantages, do you want to have them seize the device and you'd be without a phone?" Chiappari asks. "Or do you want to just let them look at it, appease them and they won't find anything that will cause them to arrest you or keep you at the airport for many hours?"

5. Cleanse your phone before you travel

If you're worried about your privacy or the prospect that something could be misinterpreted, remove the potentially damaging content before leaving the country. You can curate social media and wipe away other revealing communications and restore it from a backup later.

"If there's a really sensitive conversation happening, delete it before you cross the border," McBrien says.

6. Travel with a secondary phone

You also can travel with an inexpensive and relatively anonymous secondary device or burner phone, one without your contacts, photos and revealing texts. But be aware that having a device with barely any content on it could raise alarm bells.

That said, many people have perfectly plausible reasons why they're traveling internationally with a phone with only a few basic apps and not much else. You could be on a business trip and have proprietary or client data that your employer dictates must stay in the U.S.

Regardless of the steps you take, "If you show up and [border agents] think you're suspicious ... whether you've got it encrypted or locked, if you're a person of interest they're going to take your phone," Chiappari says. "And then they'll figure out a way to get it unlocked."

But most of us are not people of interest, he says. Most people can sleep well at night, breathe easily and not really have to worry about a border search of their electronic devices.

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6 Things You Can Do to Secure Your Phone as You Reenter the Country After Traveling

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In some instances, government agents can search your digital devices legally after an international trip. Here's what you can do.

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The Rise, Rule, and Fall of the Third Reich

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The Rise, Rule, and Fall of the Third Reich

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Buy books online and find book series such as The Third Reich Trilogy written by Richard J. Evans from PenguinRandomHouse.com

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Documentary based on the book Ordinary Men

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Documentary based on the book Ordinary Men

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ORDINARY MEN - The "Forgotten Holocaust" | Official Trailer | BROADVIEW PICTURES

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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Deanie and Jay Stein Museum Shop

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Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever.

While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition.

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Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution

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Author: Christopher Browning Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942.

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The metal staircase starts at the bottom of the tower, and with each step we were climbing ever closer to the top of the trees. We were in the grounds of the old Beelitz Heilstätten, a sanatorium set among the pine forests south of Berlin. Looking up we could see the walkway stretching out from the tower, winding its way between the old sanatorium buildings and above the trees.

Our corner of Germany is pretty flat. It's not always easy to get a view, to get a feel of the lie of the land. To get a sense of the scale of the forests that surround Berlin and stretch out in all directions. But at Beelitz there is a way, one step at a time up the metal staircase. And once up there it really felt like there was nothing around us but trees, and though we knew that somewhere out there were towns and villages, railway lines and motorways, it looked like the forest simply stretched out, unbroken, all the way to the horizon and beyond.

Since the treetop walkway opened in 2015, Beelitz has become a popular day trip destination for Berliners and others who live in the surrounding region. Before then, the Beelitz Heilstätten was the domain of urban explorers and others willing to jump the fence of the ruined tuberculosis clinic. They were drawn there, like many of the paying visitors today, to the strange beauty of the ruined buildings and the stories contained within their peeling walls; the strange fascination that many of us feel - known as Ruinenlust - for places of abandonment.

Beelitz was opened in 1898 and was one of the biggest tuberculosis clinics in Europe, a place where new treatments were developed in some of the most highly advanced medical facilities anywhere in the world. The clinic would continue in its important work until the end of the Second World War, where the complex was taken over by the Soviet military who remained in place until the Russian Army finally left in 1994.

Although the clinic's buildings are landmark protected, twenty years of being abandoned to the forest have left their mark. Guided tours take visitors through some of the more structurally sound buildings, but even from the treetop walkway it is possible to gaze down and in through the open windows, to see rooms where rusting equipment shares space with scattered rubble and trees growing up through the floor, where Cyrillic graffiti left by the Soviet soldiers decorates the peeling walls and plants occupy the balconies where patients were once wheeled out to take the country air.

At the top of the tour we made our way along the walkway, looking down into the sanatorium buildings and out across the treetops to a horizon where it might be possible to spot some of the taller landmarks of Berlin in the distance. It may have been an entirely human-made structure amidst the ruins of an old hospital, but there was something about being up there that allowed us to understand a familiar landscape in a very different way.

Back down on the ground we followed a footpath through the woods, following in the footsteps of the patients, soldiers and urban explorers that had gone before us. As so often happens in a situation like this, the decades of being pretty much left alone have made the grounds of the Beelitz sanatorium unusual in a corner of Brandenburg known for its pine plantations with their uniform, straight lines of trees. Behind those high fences some 65 different tree and shrub species have been allowed to grow without hindrance, reminding us that so-called abandoned places are only ever abandoned in a certain way, and that they remain very much alive and occupied in another.

The path led us to a walkway next to the frame of a building, where women patients were once encouraged to take 'air baths' as part of their treatment. It made us think of the recent trend for 'forest bathing' - namely, going for a walk in the woods - and how each generation finds for itself the benefits of being out among the trees.

In Beelitz, at least, it felt like the forest had escaped the control of the plantations around. The old wards were embraced by the trees and the bushes, and even the structure of the treetop walkway seemed to be more part of the forest than imposed upon it. A place of abandonment had become a place of possibility. Of regrowth and return. To be viewed and understood from above the treetops, or down on the forest floor.

52°15'53.0″N 12°55'07.9″
Photographs: Katrin Schönig
Words: Paul Scraton

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Above the treetops - the Beelitz Sanatorium

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The metal staircase starts at the bottom of the tower, and with each step we were climbing ever closer to the top of the trees. We were in the grounds of the old Beelitz Heilstätten, a sanatorium set among the pine forests south of Berlin. Looking up we could see the walkway stretching out from...

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SW 590 is a faculty-led study abroad course examining social work policy and practice in Germany, with a focus on human rights, social justice, and immigration. This WhatsApp group is for students and faculty to communicate about trip logistics, updates, and coordination.

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My name is Elizabeth Salas, I am a 3-year student. I chose this study abroad opportunity because I am interested in seeing how the social policy is different in Germany. I hope to gain a different prospective from this experience. I want to learn if their policies more sense than ours. I am looking forward to all the assigned activities we will be doing because it is an experience I cannot get somewhere else. Something else, I also love history, especially World War II history. I love watching anything that has to do with World War II. I am very interested in seeing how the Germany move on from this historical event

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Hello everyone! I’m Dayana or Day. I’m a 3 year student. I’ve never traveled to Europe and thought this would be a great experience to do so with others, especially since there’s learning opportunities as well. I hope to gain more of an understanding of Germany’s culture and history. I love making new friends! I’m very friendly and am very excited to get to know all of you. I enjoy music, eating and going to museums so I’m very excited for what’s to come.

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Purple Pink Nostalgia Scrapbook About Me Blank Education Presentation

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Hey everyone, my name is Gerardo Marquez.

I am a 3 year student.

I chose this study abroad program because I have never had the opportunity to do a study abroad program before. I knew when this opportunity presented itself, I had to make an effort in participating and be the first in my family and circle to do something like this. I have always wanted to study abroad to experience and learn about different cultures.

I hope to gain insight about life in Germany and learn how a different culture addresses social problems. I enjoy learning from different perspectives and connecting with people.

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SW 590 Germany program summer school itinerary 2026

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Hello, my name is LaRell Thomas! I am a 3 year student and I chose this study abroad opportunity because I have never been out of the country. I wanted my first time to be a meaningful reason, and learning how social work is done in a different country like Germany, with so much history attached it them, seemed amazing to be able to do! I hope to learn different cultures other than American culture.

I also hope to gain knowledge on social work as a career and the different ways it is used to help heal the world. I am very nervous but excited for this trip! I know it will be the best experience I have had in my life! Thank you CSULB for giving me this opportunity.

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TOUR ITINERARY (as of May 6) with Travel Info

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TOUR ITINERARY (as of May 6) with Travel Info

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Hi, I am Sangwon. I’m currently in the 2-year program.

I chose this program because I am interested in seeing how different cultures tackle social problems. Also, I think traveling is great, but getting to travel while actually learning something new is even better.

From this experience, I hope to broaden my mind and have a fresh perspective on the world.

One thing to know about me: I am not usually the person who goes out of my way to look for new experiences, but I am definitely open to them. If you are planning something new or fun, count me in!

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Hi! My name is Kayla Whittiker. I am a 3 year student, going into my last year. I chose to be apart of this opportunity because I wanted to learn how different cultures approach social services, community support, and advocacy. I believe experiencing another country’s perspectives and systems firsthand will help me grow both personally and professionally as a future social worker.

Through this experience, I hope to gain a broader global perspective, strengthen my cultural competence, and develop a deeper understanding of how social issues impact communities internationally. I’m also excited to step outside of my comfort zone, build new connections, and create meaningful experiences that will shape the way I approach social work in the future.

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Greetings everyone,

My name is Artist Knox. I'm a one-year post grad class 0f 2025's 3- year program. I was blessed to participate in study abroad Germany 2024. To be included for 2026 is nothing short of a dream. I'm looking forward to re-visiting the class rooms and sites that deeply impacted me and polished my social lens. To explore a land where culture, history & its tragedies collided to ultimately influence global policies, will be life changing for all involved. I can't wait to spend more time in the world class museums while navigating the city. I would like to thank the faculty for opening this opportunity and the students for welcoming me.

-You will be amazed & humbled.