Honestly this trip was a load of fun but it was very physically exhausting. Experiencing German culture was a great experience. Between the early mornings, long days, and constant travel, I was definitely feeling it by the time our free day arrived and definitely was excited to go home on Saturday.    As the trip started…

With no scheduled company visits or presentations, I decided to spend my free day in Salzburg, Austria with some of the other members of my group. We had heard good things about the city before the trip from the group before us, and since it was only a short train ride away, it seemed like…

The best part about this day was easily the fact that we could sleep in. After waking up no later than 6am for the last 3 days, catching up on sleep was a relief to say the least. I met up with my group, we found a room and then wrapped up our presentation on…

This had to be my favorite tour of the entire trip. Immediately when we got to the factory there was a show room and a gift shop that I naturally gravitated towards. Within the show room the first car that caught my attention was one of my dream cars, an Audi RS5 Avant. Its a…

What was supposed to be a tour of the company Continental, turned into a rather different tour which I knew from the beginning was going to be completely different. Aumovio was actually a branch of Continental that had split off the company in September 2025.  The reason for the spin off was that the branch…

As compared to the other companies, MAN definitely offered a different perspective on the shifts in the automotive market that were the subject of everything we had seen so far. This company was a clear example of how the economy is dependant on industries and companies we do not normally see in commercials or think…

When we got to the actual camps after all of the introductory talks and historical discussions, immediately the first thing that jumped out was how big this camp was. It was vast, spanning probably just as big if not bigger than the plot of land the Cathedral of learning was on which to me was…

When we arrived at the city it immediately felt like I was walking into a museum and a city blended together. It was way more walkable than every city I have been in back in the United States. It was very easy to move through the city, more walkways, more methods of public transportation, bike…

After seeing how companies operated internally for the last couple of days, we got to see a birds eye view of the broader automotive market from a market analyst from Bloomberg Financial. One of the things he mentioned was that broad shift in the geopolitical landscape with trade wars, embargos, and tariffs affecting everyone involved….

After being in factories and also being in Augsburg for the last 3 days, the trip to Neuschwanstein was not only a breath of fresh air, but a very surreal experience. Standing inside the castle did really feel like I was in some sort of retreat built for a king and I know why he…

One of the most interesting parts of visiting KUKA was realizing that even in a facility filled with advanced robotics, people still were the driving force behind the company. There was next to no automation in the company itself which I found quite ironic. The company was basically making all of their robots top to…

When we started the tour I was immediately amazed and more entertained than I had been the entire trip. The amount of robots (mostly from KUKA) that were automated and working on every single aspect of the cars was absolutely amazing to me and unlike anything I had ever seen before. Everything was working together…

Immediately when I stepped foot on the university the first thing that I saw was that there were no students around. It was so dead that the university might as well be closed. This is completely contrary to pitt as we all know from about 9-10am there are always people walking around either to class…

The immediate culture shock was the atmosphere of the city. Instead of the hustle and bustle of a classic American city I had been to like Pittsburgh and New York City, people seemed to be more laid back and relaxed, going about their days less oriented on work and more balanced than the average American….

Until now, Germany had mostly existed to me through brands, history books, and videos online. As I was checking in to the airport on my phone, getting ready for the bus ride over, all of it felt more and more real. On the bus ride to the airport all I could think about was the…