Hello, my name is Alexander Paul Grigelis, from Fairfax County outside of Washington, DC. I am a freshman at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, having recently declared my major in Industrial Engineering with an intended minor in Economics. I am extremely excited to get to know everyone more over the course of our adventures and cannot wait for our program to begin.

I am headed on the Plus3 program destined for The Netherlands, where the primary topic throughout will be “concept to customer.” As a future Industrial Engineering student, I believe a lot of what we will be doing on this trip will be extremely beneficial to me and aligns very well with my interests. I am very analytical and I enjoy understanding processes and relating them with the global market. I have also never been outside of the country (apart from Canada), so the opportunity to study abroad at the end of my first year sounded extremely interesting to me.

I hope our time abroad reinforces my desire to pursue future study abroad opportunities in the future. I have been looking at German programs in Hamburg and Munich and feel that the two week Plus3 program will introduce me to life outside of the US and in Europe. I also hope this program expands my knowledge related to my intended major and sets me up exceptionally going into the Fall 2023 semester. I hope the company visits and Q&As give me an idea of what my future profession looks like and helps me begin the process of searching for internships and future aspirations based on my acquired interests here.