Get it? like Alice in Wonderland?
Anyways, hello everyone! My name is Phoebe Katz. I am from Tarrytown, New York which is about 45 minutes north of Manhattan and is right on the Hudson River. I have one older sister, Zoe, and one younger dog, Pumpernickel. Pumpernickel was born on 3.14.20, which is pi day and she coincidentally is fantastic at math. When I am not hanging out with her, I like to read, bake, look at trees, and fall off my skateboard. I also have a mild Netflix addiction and most recently watched The Ultimatum (would recommend).
At Pitt, I am majoring in mechanical engineering, and I will be declaring a minor in Spanish very soon. I began learning Spanish in Pre-K and am planning to continue my international experiences after Plus3 by spending Spring 2023 in Madrid. In addition, I would like to get the Innovation, Product Design and Entrepreneurship Certificate. Outside of the classroom, I joined The Hydroponics Club because I like plants. I also participate in Challah for Hunger, in which we braid and sell challah bread, then donate the profits. I enjoy this too, because I like to flex on everyone around me when I finish two braids while they are still working on their first.
I will be going on Plus3 in Germany this summer. I wanted to do the program because I love travelling. The collaboration with students at the University of Augsburg is particularly interesting to me, as it will be a great way to better understand modern German society. In most of my past travel, I have had comparable opportunities to meet young people from other countries and it’s always awesome to see how similar I am to people who live vastly different lives. Specifically, I wanted to go to Germany because the relationship between vehicles and the structure of society is fascinating to me. For example, as I grew up in the suburbs, almost everyone I know owns a car and thus the day I got my license was one of the most exciting moments of my young life. As the automotive industry changes, this relationship will most certainly change as well.
As we all know, the automotive industry is in a dynamic state due to factors that can be summed up by the acronym CASE (Connected Autonomous Shared Electric and yes this is redemption for the quiz and also yes I did look it up). The main thing that I hope to get out of this experience is to learn about how an industry undergoes such massive change. How do historically legendary companies like BMW transform their product line while maintaining their internal structures? Or does the company need to change along with its technology? I also hope to learn more about German culture and identity.
