"Anything is possible"

The combination of business and travel appealed to her, says Luisa Walter. She is pursuing a master’s degree in International Tourism Management in Görlitz and is about to begin her Master's thesis. For the 23-year-old, it was always clear that once she completed her Bachelor’s degree, a master’s would automatically follow. Luisa Walter is from Görlitz and lives with her parents. She’s never lived away from home; she’s found everything she needed for her path practically right on her doorstep. Luisa Walter first attended a vocational school specializing in business, then decided to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Tourism Management, and—even while she was writing and defending her Bachelor thesis—determined to follow that up with a master’s in International Tourism Management. Now she’s nearing the end of this academic journey—at just 24, she’ll have her master’s degree in hand, and the world will be her oyster.

From September to December 2023, Luisa Walter studied in Bali, Indonesia. The degree programme was called International Business Studies; a local German agency helped with the complicated visa process and served as a constant point of contact for the student. “The professors were locals,” says Luisa Walter. “It was precisely those who had never left Indonesia who impressed me the most. That simplicity, that sense of happiness just from being alive in this world—I won’t forget that outlook on life anytime soon.” When she returned to Germany after four months, she noticed it immediately: the pessimism and negativity of the Germans—perhaps a minor, reverse culture shock that Luisa Walter hadn’t anticipated.

But getting started in Bali wasn’t always easy either. “Tropical diseases and being careful about what I ate, a 16-hour flight—I was somehow prepared for all that, but I wasn’t prepared for the fact that, in the end, it would be the other German students who made life there difficult for me,” says Luisa Walter. “There were so many prejudices against me because I’m from a small town in Saxony near the Polish border,” she says. There were also major differences among the German students in other ways, Luisa Walter explains. Some rented a yacht, while for others, taking selfies at Instagram hotspots was more important than their coursework. Luisa Walter, at least, has benefited from both the difficult and the happy moments—from the experience of being completely on her own somewhere. “I only learned in Bali that I can do that—that I can be good at being alone. And I still think about the locals’ impressive mindset almost every day.”

Now she’s wondering how she could incorporate her time in Bali into her Master's thesis. But she’s still working it out. She has the contacts; her topics are sustainability, developing countries, and long-distance travel. You can tell: Luisa Walter lives and loves her studies. “I’m very ambitious,” she says. She’s currently very interested in how tour operators source and bundle their achievements to create the perfect travel promise. “I have a passion for travel,” she says. And she wants to see even more of the world. With her degree, all doors are open to her.

It would also be great if she could work in the public sector and in management positions, for example for the Zittauer Gebirge Nature Park or the Dresden Ministry of Tourism. "Thanks to my degree, I specialize in tourism, but I'm super broadly positioned when it comes to the business side."

After her Master's, she wants to "finally work properly", as she says, stop being on her parents' backs and pay them back for their financial support for Bali. She is already thinking about her retirement provision and dreams of being able to travel around the world with the money she earns. "Just like others love buying clothes or cosmetics, I love traveling."

Text: Sophie Herwig