Study Abroad, Berlin Germany

Interested in studying abroad? Learn more about the program, explore available opportunities, and sign up for an upcoming information session through PSU Study Abroad. 

This faculty-led program examines youth social work and educational practice in Germany through an immersive academic experience in Berlin. Students will explore how German approaches to youth development, social pedagogy, and community-based services differ from those commonly used in the United States. Through lectures, classroom observations, organizational site visits, and cultural engagement, participants will develop a comparative understanding of youth services and the broader social conditions shaping young people's lives.

The program leverages Portland State University's exchange relationship with Hochschule für Sociale Arbeit und Pädagogik (HSAP: University of Applied Sciences in Social Work and Education), allowing students direct access to German faculty, students, and youth-serving organizations. Guided by faculty expertise in youth work and comparative social services, students will critically examine international perspectives while reflecting on their own developing professional identities. Education and social service intervention with youth and young adults takes many different forms across the globe. Germany in particular has a robust tradition of youth educational and social service delivery, and Berlin is an internationally recognized hotspot of youth culture. Germany in general, and Berlin particularly, is also facing many of the same social services dynamics currently alive in the US: structural racism's effects on service delivery, cross-cultural work with large immigrant and refugee communities, poverty, substance use, and mental health.

Through existing exchange relationships with HSAP, students will have access to first-hand introductions to youth services in Berlin. We will attend lectures and conduct class observations/participation in HSAP child and youth welfare courses, as well as invited tours and site visits to partner organizations providing services to youth. Cultural exchange activities are also included. Gaining exposure to international contexts provides students with deeper understandings of the social and material conditions of young people around the world, and seeing alternate ways of approaching youth policy and services helps students think more critically and creatively about our own domestic approaches to these same issues.

We will also do fun stuff in and around Berlin! It's an extraordinary city with a population of over 3 million. There's a ton to do and see, and we will have a first-hand seat to all of it.

Although details are still being finalized, we plan to be in Berlin from September 21-29, 2027. Students can use financial aid to cover the costs of the trip, and you'll earn 4 credits that can be applied as electives in any of the SSW's undergraduate majors or minor