Freshman year is a time of change and adjustment for all college students, but for some, the change is much greater than for others.
For Annemarie Schwanz, a distance runner on the Fresno State track team, that change meant coming to a new country.
Born and raised in Germany, she is currently in her first year at Fresno State.
“In the beginning it was pretty hard,” Schwanz said. “I didn’t know anyone here and everything was so different.”
She chose to come to the school before ever setting foot in America, let alone on the Central Valley campus.
“It’s pretty hard to do this in Germany,” she said. “So I looked around a little bit and found some agencies in Germany. They had a profile of me, and my coach, or a lot of coaches from the US had access to it.”
She received emails from 30 different US schools, but chose to come to Fresno State along with friend and fellow runner Stella Kubasch.
“Yeah, I don’t know why exactly I chose Fresno,” Schwanz said. “It was just,yeah. It’s probably nice there and let’s go.”
Aside from the chance to come to California, she said it was also her coach, Fresno State distance running coach Sean McManus who helped win her over.
“So I thought, yeah, California might be nice,” she said. “The coach was pretty nice too, so that’s why I chose Fresno.”
McManus said they found Schwanz with the help of Kubasch.
“Word of mouth is kind of your best friend when it comesto recruiting international athletes,” he said. “Just cold-calling kids internationally can be awkward for all parties involved.”
They asked Kubasch if she knew of anyone else that might be interested in coming to run for the Bulldogs, and she pointed them to Schwanz.
Schwanz and Kubasch are two of the six international students on the Fresno State track and field team. Five of them are on the women’s team.
McManus said the amount of international students on the team varies from year to year. There are a lot of great runners close to home, so thatis always the first place they look.
“We try to recruit local kids first and then look around the state and then take it to an international level,” McManus said.
This is why all the non-international members of the team come from California.
McManus said when it comes to international students he wants to make sure that the academic aspect is important to them as well.
He said Schwanz’ high priority on academics was a big factor in
bringing her to the Valley. “With Annemarie for example, she’s a straight-A student,” McManus said. “She was a 4.0 student last semester. She’s studying engineering. I mean, academics are very important
to her.” Despite her good grades, thetransition has not been without its problems.
Unsurprisingly, the language was an initial barrierfor Schwanz. She began taking English as early as the third grade, but there was still an adjustment period for her.
“Of course in the beginning I could barely speak English,” she said. “You really have to force yourself, ‘Ok, I talk to people now.’”
Like many college students who leave home for school, her other major struggle was homesickness. Due to the distance, she has only seen her parents in person for one weekend over the school year. Outside of that, she said there has been a lot of Skyping back and forth.
“I just booked my flight to go home for the summer,” she said, smiling. “It’s been a tough time to be here for 10 months without seeing anyone from home.”
Schwanz said that overall she has been happy with how things have gone in her first year in Fresno. That includes her performances on the track.
“I think for all the change in my life, I’ve done pretty well so far,” Schwanz said.