This paper is the result of a U.S. student's one-month stay at Ruprecht-Karls Universitaet in Germany. The paper's author explains that as a doctoral student in higher education administration at Bowling Green State University (OH), she fulfilled an optional program requirement called "Global Understanding" and was accepted for a short period of independent research at Ruprecht-Karls Universitaet in Heidelberg. The object was to understand the institutional culture, structure, policies, and the specific aspects of student life at the Heidelberg institution. The paper notes the six-century-long history of this university and the role it has been playing in the academic world as a source of progress and knowledge. To understand the directions toward which various activities of the institution might tend to develop in the future, the researcher conducted a series of interviews with administrators, researchers, students, and faculty; consulted the documentation offered by her hosts; and took part in various cultural and social activities organized mainly for the international guests of the institution. (BT)