[Grundalizer]

I'm in my senior undergraduate year now and know I want to go to graduate school, but don't know where.  I've been in Massachusetts on the North Shore for 20 years now and the thought of spending another 4-5 just 30 minutes away in Boston is very enticing, but also very daunting.  Boston has a great concentration of schools well known for Chemistry and Materials science, but I have been wanting to go to Germany for years and years now.  I have no interest in going to schools anywhere outside of Boston though, unless it's in Germany.

I was wondering if anyone had experience with making the life changing transition of leaving your family and friends behind and diving into a 4,2, or even 1 year endeavor somewhere in Europe in the academic field?  I've done a lot of looking at the DAAD site...but there are so many options.  I am a little overwhelmed with grad school right now and am seriously considering taking a year off to do research somewhere to better my application.  Any insight would be helpful, thanks.

[408]

Well I broke my rule of "facebook is evil" to stay in contact with friends when I moved here...

And you pretty much have to like beer...which was initially a problem for me.

[Grundalizer]

Neither of those are problems.  My problem is trying to even find someone I'd like to work for...and whether I'd be doing a masters there (2 years) or a full phD.  I wouldn't mind doing a masters in Germany and then returning to the US for a phD.  I'm searching a lot on DAAD but I guess i need to start googling research groups at German universities and just emailing professors.