Today we visited the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve and the Monteverde Institute. I learned how hard it can be to balance protecting the environment while also supporting tourism and the economy. While walking the Sendero Corazón del Bosque trail, I noticed that some areas were closed off or had limited access. Monteverde is one of…
Category: Plus3 2025
Learning to Leave It Better
Across the wide varieties of companies we have visited during our time in Costa Rica, we have heard over and over again how they value sustainability. We have seen it through how they operate at the farms through avoiding pesticides and using natural resources to ward off pests. We have seen how Arenal only uses…
Day 12- Comparing Two Brands
After BMW, I wasn’t sure Audi could impress me in the same way. It did, but very differently. The facility itself felt more refined. Where BMW felt like an industrial city, Audi felt like a campus that had been thought through. There were more hands-on workers visible on the floor rather than the robot-dominated lines we saw at BMW. The production…
Day 10: Nearing The End
I can’t believe this trip is wrapping up soon, and that in only a couple days I will be back on a flight to America. The past two weeks have been so amazing to me, and there are no words I can use to describe how grateful I am for this experience. I chose to…
Day 5: These Castles Are Crazy Man
The day started off very slow, I was off about an hour of sleep, but I still managed to make it to breakfast which slowly healed me. We got on the bus and headed towards the alps. We were heading to Neuschwanstein, a large castle built my King Ludwig II. While I said that KUKA…
Day 9: The Hidden Gems
We had an early start this morning to depart Nürnberg to visit MAN and tour the Kunstbunker. Once we arrived in the city, I was in awe of the beautiful architecture and the old charm of the area. Walking around, I felt like the hilly structure and buildings reminded me of Edinburgh a little bit….
Day 3 – I’m Starting to Love It Here!
Today is our first full day in Germany! We were out the door by 7:45, and I was definitely starting to feel the time change, but I was too excited to let it bother me! Today, we departed from the Konigsplatz station and took a streetcar to the University of Augsburg. I was surprised to…
Waorani Way to the Jungle
Sunday started painfully early. Like 5:30 a.m. early. We grabbed a quick breakfast, loaded onto the bus, and immediately got introduced to what I can only describe as a two hour whiplash session disguised as a road. From there, we loaded all our stuff onto these big motorized canoes manned by the Geyepare tribe, with…
Day 12- A City Powered by Audi
We had a much needed later start today and I was feeling very refreshed and excited to finally see Audi, the company I’m presenting on. We had the Audi speaker a week ago so I was looking forward to bringing everything that was said to life. The Audi campus was so grand and very modern….
Day 8: The City of Red Scarves
Today, we spent the day in Munich, only about a 45-minute train ride from Augsburg. The second we stepped off the train, you could feel the rush of the city. People were moving in every direction throughout the walk into the main city area. There was also an FC Bayern Munich vs. FC Köln match…
Day 10: MAN!
This was one of our first early days in a while, and it hit me like a train. I have never been a morning person, so getting up at 5:30 a.m. has always been hard for me. You would think waking up that early every morning for swim practice throughout high school would have helped,…
Day 9: A Day of Rememberence
The tour of Dachau today changed my perspective on the living conditions these innocent people were forced to endure. You learn about how awful it was in school, but it does not truly do it justice. Walking through the rebuilt barracks, you can really see how little space the prisoners had. On top of that,…
Day 7: A Day of Unexpected Weddings
Friday, we finally had some time to relax and catch up on sleep. Before our talk later in the day, a group of us decided to visit the Schaezlerpalais, an art museum with a gorgeous Golden Hall featuring detailed stucco work and frescoed ceilings. Every historic building I have visited here seems to have incredible…
Day 10: House Sauce
Today we started with another language session, but this time aimed at haggling down prices for our visit to the market later in the day. We painted traditional rice hats, but mine kept falling off my head because I forgot to tie the chin band on. We then departed to Ben Thanh market. It was…
MAN and Nuremberg: Monday
I was definitely very tired going into the tour today, but I did my best to pay attention. MANN definitely did a great job of keeping me engaged. The guide was very knowledgeable, and it was interesting to learn about a company I had never heard of before and how it currently operates in 127…
Day 4: Leading Robot Tech – KUKA
After visiting the BMW Factory, I was very invested in seeing KUKA. The whole factory at BMW was practically run by these robots and wherever you would look you would see the iconic orange machines. We started out the day arriving at the headquarters by streetcar, it was a much shorter trip than BMW. We…
May 19 – Creepy Crawlies in the Canopy
Today we left La Fortuna and made our way to Monteverde, where we got to stop by a large wind turbine plant, tour another coffee farm, and finish the day with a canopy night hike through the rainforest. One thing that really stood out to me about the wind turbines was that not all of…
Wind Farms and Night Walks: Pros and Cons of Renewable Energy
Today we left La Fortuna and took a four hour drive back over the mountain to Monte Verde. Along the way we stoped at a wind farm to see the wind turbines up close. When we got to Monte Verde, we hiked through the rain forest in the dark searching for insects and other wild…
Day 3: “How it’s Made” in real life
Today was our first site visit and the factory tour I was most looking forward to: BMW! We took the bus to Munich where their headquarters are located and had a guest talk to start the morning. We heard about what’s most important to BMW moving forward, including prioritizing their Neue Klasse models and providing…
Day 6: Escaping to the Mountains
After a long nap, I woke up right next to the Alps at Neuschwanstein Castle. This impressive castle was commissioned by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in the 19th century, although it appears much older because of its architecture. This retreat from the industrial world felt like something out of a fairytale or a movie….