Final Blog Post 🇩🇪

Wow. Our two weeks is officially over and I’ve been back home for a few days now. Oakland isn’t busy at all and is much different then Center City Augsburg that I’ve been so accustomed to throughout the last two weeks. One of the things I really enjoyed about Augsburg is the easy-going way of life. Germans and maybe just Europeans in general seem to take life a lot more calm and seem to really enjoy simple things such as sitting outside at restaurant and just hanging out for hours. Even on Monday nights we would walk around and there would be a bunch of people in the center city having drinks or having a bite to eat. It was really cool to experience and a lot different than what I’m used to in the US. I liked it more. 

After going through my camera roll I can say this trip has definitely exceeded my expectations and will be something I’ll never forget. The memories made in the people I met will stick with me throughout my life. On the professional side, I will highly value what I’ve learned, what I’ve seen, and the companies we visited. Witnessing the efficiency and everything that goes into a car, or a manufacturing chip, or industrial machinery is something I never realized the immense process of, but will hold high and remember forever. 

Our first tour, Hoerbiger, was is amazing. Their lecture to start was super informative and then we got to walk around their production facility and seeing all the chips being made and what all goes into it. It’s a super detailed process and I was really surprised to hear it only takes them about a minute and half to produce and finish a chip. Crazy. The scale in which all the companies produce their stuff amaze me. The one thing I really enjoyed about Hoerbiger was one of the tour guides who walked with us around the facility. He kind of stuck around in the back of the group with me and I got to ask him as many questions as I had and just converse with him about his past, what he does for the company, and get more insight into Hoerbiger. All of the companies we visited had really great people and super enjoyable employees. Our other visits were just as great. At Grob, which was the company I was tasked to do my presentation on, had a lot different of a building and production facilities than the rest of the companies. Their lectures were great and super informative, especially for my presentation. Their lecturers had a lot of character which I liked. They didn’t just stand up there and read off the screen. Our third tour, Forvia, was one of the coolest ones because we got to see up close the making of the muffler for the Porsche gt3. It’s crazy the detail in the precision that not only the machines, but the people have when producing the muffler. They even had a speaker which they designed that was inside one of the Porsche mufflers which was super cool and they said they sold 50 of them as a limited edition product for $12,000 each. I don’t have that much to spend on speaker, but if I did I would definitely buy that one. Lastly, Audi was my personal favorite visit. Their facilities were second to none, they were so clean and so tidy, they had a great tour of the facility, and the museum was great to walk around. Actually seeing a full car being built from start to finish with some thing I really cherished. Also, seeing all of their history and their past cars in the museum was really cool and something I’ve never experienced before. Overall, I really enjoyed all the company tours and even though it’s the educational part of the trip and maybe not the most glamorous up front, it was some of my favorite parts of the trip. 

Probably the best part of the trip as a whole was the people I’ve met in the friends I’ve made. Not only within the Pitt students, but all of the German people and friends that I’ve made throughout the two weeks. Whether it was one of the workers from the hotel, one of the undergraduate Augsburg students, or one of the exchange graduate students that’ll be at Pitt in the fall, I’ve met so many great people and I’ve been so lucky to make so many new friends in a short amount of time. Almost every night at least some of us went out and did some thing after getting back from the day. Whether it was Augsburg’s nightlife, a restaurant, or a new town, I really enjoyed exploring everything Augsburg had to offer and seeing so many different things in places. The German students were so great throughout the entire two weeks, as they showed us around and translated for us way too many times. We really did make great friends with them and I’ll miss seeing them over the summer. I’m super excited for the fall though as six of them will be coming to Pittsburgh. I look forward to showing them around our city and seeing them again.

The stay the entire trip, although didn’t seem the best at first, was really great. The hotel staff was super friendly and we even made friends with one of the nightshift workers, Ray. When we got to our rooms they were a lot smaller than I expected and the beds were pretty much right next to each other so I didn’t know what to think at the time, but we were barely ever in our rooms anyway and it turned out to be perfectly fine. It could’ve also been due to the fact that I had a great roommate as well, who I vaguely knew before the trip but I’ve made good friends with now. The hotel lobby was my favorite however as it was a great spot to hang out and a great place for breakfast. I was pleasantly surprised by the hotel breakfast. All of the food was actually really good and I didn’t see myself getting tired of it which was nice. The best part was the coffee machine though. It was touchscreen and you just pressed whatever coffee you wanted and it would come out in 15 seconds. That’s one thing I miss the most- unlimited cappuccinos. I definitely need to get one of those machines for my apartment. 

Augsburg as a whole was great in general. I liked the city a lot more than I thought I would and was surprised with how much it had to offer. Any café I would go to or any restaurant was so amazing and Augsburg had a lot of different kinds of cuisine which I was pleasantly surprised about. The Italian food not only in Augsburg, but the rest of Germany was superb. I had some of the best pizza and pasta of my life over the last two weeks. The schnitzel also didn’t disappoint. In addition to Augsburg, every other town we visited was astonishing. Whether it was a big city like Munich or a smaller town like Oberammagau, I thoroughly enjoyed everywhere we went and would love to visit again one day. One of my main highlights was Munich, which was the biggest and most popular, but for good reason. The city had so much to offer it was so cool walking around and seeing so much of it. There are so many great shops, restaurants, and buildings to see. I loved the Center city of Munich as well with the tradition of the boys dancing on the building and the bird chirping after. That’s one thing I’ll really cherish about Germany and especially Bavaria- the traditions run so deep in their culture and they have so many great ones. In Munich, we got to visit the original Hofbrauhaus too which was awesome. Being that they have a chain restaurant in Pittsburgh, it was super cool to see the original. The beer garden and the music inside were my two favorite parts of it. The one thing that surprised me, but probably shouldn’t have, what is the amount of people in Munich. When we first got there and walked into the center city it was flooded with people and you could barely walk through the crowd. Obviously, I wouldn’t prefer that, but it goes to show how great the city is and how many people want to visit it. Once we started walking around more though there wasn’t as many crowds and it was a lot more easy-going and walkable. It was definitely one of the coolest cities I’ve ever visited in my life. 

In the class, I learned a lot. The main thing I learned, and really enjoyed, was working with a new group of students. I was really surprised by the German students and how well their English was. At times there was a language barrier, but rarely. I’ve definitely learned how to adapt in an unusual situation with uncertainty. I expected there to be more lecture material, but I was glad to find out there wasn’t as much as I expected. I guess some of our speakers covered that, but they were very engaging and pleasant to listen to so maybe it just seemed like it wasn’t much of a lecture/powerpoint. All of the speakers were great. I was impressed to here from everyone at the companies as well as people from Bloomberg and more. I learned that I can put myself in different, uncomfortable situations and thrive. I really enjoyed adapting to the culture and people. Experiencing a whole different country was intimidating at first, but turned out to be super fun and enjoyable. I learned to network on an international scale, occasionally with a language barrier. I learned a lot more about supply chains and the effort of so many people to achieve one collective goal- seeing the piece of the puzzle every team member played. I learned that I am capable of succeeding no matter my environment and so many more things that I will take with me for the coming years. All of this of course, I did with my classmates, who I only knew a couple of prior to the trip, but now I can say many of them are good friends and it was a great time adventuring Germany with them. It was great to work on the group project with a few of them as well and it’s good to know I have some more faces to say hi to around campus. 

To wrap this final blog up, the number one best thing from the trip was the people. The professors, German students, and my classmates are what made everything so enjoyable. Whether we were out after our days, on a company visit, at the university, or out to eat I loved talking to everyone and meeting so many new people. I think that’s what it’s all about and building new connections was the best part I got out of this trip. As far as changing anything, I don’t think I would to anything. I really enjoyed our schedule and how our two weeks were mapped out. I liked having most of our company visits and long days our first week and having a more relaxed second week with a couple free days. I have to credit the program managers, especially Niko, who is now a good friend, who worked on our scheduling for months prior to the trip. They did a great job planning it and I don’t think I would change a thing. I really enjoyed every city and town we visited. I felt like I saw so much of Germany in such a short time. 

I would recommend this study abroad program to anyone and my time in Germany completely exceeded my expectations.