When Abigail first started looking into a master's abroad, she pictured a four-figure tuition bill and years of lectures in German. Today she's a third-semester student of Human Rights in Law and Politics at Hochschule Fulda (Fulda University of Applied Sciences) — and neither of those fears came true. We sat down with her to hear what studying in Germany is really like: the coursework, the costs, the community, and the advice she wishes she'd had sooner.

An interdisciplinary master's that meets you where you are

Abigail's programme is built to cross boundaries. It draws students from sociology, law, and social work, and its subject matter reaches well beyond human-rights law alone — into culture, cultural heritage, and cultural relations. "It's not hard," she says, "but it does need you to actually study, invest your time, and do your research."

I really like my classes, and my teachers are really helpful. You get to learn a lot when it comes to human rights.Abigail, MA Human Rights, Hochschule Fulda

Two features of the German system caught her off guard — in a good way. Group work, she found, quietly builds character and helps students who arrive without strong teamwork skills. And oral exams, nerve-racking as they are, turn out to be perfect training for a life in advocacy. As she puts it, if you're going to be a human-rights advocate, you have to be able to speak in front of people — and the oral exams are exactly that practice.

She still laughs about her first one. She walked in panicking; her professor simply said, "relax"; they worked through the questions; and at the end he told her she'd done really well. "I went in panicking," she says, "and walked out so happy."

Arriving with no friends — and building a community anyway

Landing in a new country without a single friend is daunting, and Abigail won't pretend otherwise. Her advice is to lean on the university: Hochschule Fulda runs social events specifically so new students, many of them international, can meet one another. Her own class became a small United Nations — classmates from Kenya, the United States, Uruguay, and beyond, all sharing English as a common language. "We speak English, so we have that uniting thing going on. It was really easy to make friends."

Outside class, the calendar fills up fast: picnics in Fulda's greener corners, a getaway to Hamburg, and her first time seeing Kendrick Lamar and SZA perform live at a concert in Frankfurt. Then there was Fasching, the German carnival festival, in Mainz — something she'd never experienced before. "I got immersed in the culture," she says. "It was fun."

What studying in Germany actually costs

This is where prospective students tend to sit up. Abigail pays €381 for the semester — and most of that isn't a "fee" in the way you'd imagine. The bulk covers her semester ticket, which she uses every single day on buses and trains. The rest is a contribution to the student body. "It's honestly cheaper if you compare it with other countries," she notes. And that same fee quietly unlocks far more than transport.

The 20-hour rule — and why it matters

Germany lets international students work up to 20 hours a week during the semester, and Abigail says it makes a genuine difference. "The blocked account is sustainable, but it doesn't guarantee to sustain you the whole time," she explains. "There are times you need to make your own money." She landed her first job about three months after arriving, having started looking around the two-month mark, and she's now on her second. "The pay is really good, and honestly the job isn't hard — I actually like it."

The information she almost never received

Before finding COSMA, Abigail consulted several agencies — and came away frustrated. "In all honesty, they were not 100% transparent." What set COSMA apart was information she simply wasn't getting elsewhere. Most agencies only advertised private universities, leaving her convinced she'd always face a four-figure tuition bill. "I had no idea public universities existed, because all the unis advertised by these agencies were the private ones."

She'd also assumed she would have to study entirely in German. "It was heartbreaking — imagine having to do a master's in German." Then she learned that Germany offers a wide range of English-taught programmes, plus a language centre teaching English, French, Italian, and Spanish. "I was so hopeful after knowing that."

What I liked about COSMA is that I did not get false hopes. I was really informed about everything that was going to happen throughout the journey.Abigail on choosing COSMA

Abigail's advice for anyone dreaming of Germany

Whether you're in Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, India, or anywhere else weighing a master's in Germany, Abigail's guidance is clear and hard-won.

Abigail's story began with a single honest conversation — one that swapped false hope for real information and set the rest of her journey in motion. If Germany is your dream, that conversation is exactly where COSMA starts.