Mbakop's first trip abroad took place in 1996: At the age of 23 he received a scholarship from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) to prepare his master's thesis at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt / Main. In 1999 it was published under the title On the Problems of Freedom and Individuality: "A Study of Goethe's "Götz von Berlichingen” and “Egmont”." Four years later Mbakop obtained his doctorate from the same university with a dissertation on the pamphlets of Heinrich Mann and André Gide.