I woke up on our last morning feeling so many emotions: sad to leave, grateful for the experience, and dreading the nine-hour flight. I headed down for breakfast one last time, sad that the array of food would soon be a memory. After eating, I made sure to stop at the grocery store one last…
The Final Blog — Takeaways from Germany (Not Just Souvenirs!)
As I said in my last blog post, I truly could not have asked for a better Plus3 experience than the one I got. I made new friends with similar interests, saw more of the world than I ever have before, ate delicious food, and most importantly, broadened my perspective. One thing in particular about…
Day 15 Blog — The Longest Travel Day Ever
Being 6’3” is usually awesome, but when you’re on a plane for 9 hours, it really doesn’t feel like the best thing in the world. All jokes aside, it was truly sad to say that our time abroad had officially come to a close. We all woke up, grabbed our last complimentary breakfast, and got…
Day 14 Blog — Exploring Austria
Well, that’s a wrap! Our time in Germany has come to a close, and oddly enough, we chose to spend the day in an entirely different country, Austria. Almost all of our travel group made our way to Salzburg, waking up early and hopping on a train to get to Munich’s main station. There, we…
Day 13 Blog — We All Learned a Thing or Two!
The day has finally come! Presentations are upon us, and we can put all that we have learned to the test. We didn’t have to be at the university until 2, but a few of us headed over to the university to grab a bite to eat, and then meet with our groups one last…
Day 12 Blog — Amazed by Audi
The day has finally come upon us, the last factory tour; I don’t think we could’ve ended on a much better note. We went through the regular routine: wake up, breakfast, sleep on the bus, and make our way off to Audi headquarters. We showed up a little bit early, so we took some time…
Day 11 Blog — Circuit Boards, City Halls, and Even More Coffee
Another day, another tour. Today, we headed out to Regensburg to see Aumovio, a company that helps to develop the internal technology for digital displays in cars. Though it sounds a little bit less interesting than seeing luxury cars themself in production, I actually found this to be quite interesting. I personally have experience building…
Day 10 Blog — Buses, Bunkers, and Bavarian Coffee
Today was a long one, but nonetheless, pretty interesting. We headed off to Nuremberg to visit MAN headquarters and get another factory tour. This one was a bit of a mixture of the KUKA and BMW tour style, being guided both above the work floor and on it. To get started, they geared us up…
Day 9 Blog — Remembering Dachau
While yesterday was super fun and light-hearted, we took today to reflect on Germany’s history and visit the first ever concentration camp, Dachau. As soon as we stepped off the bus, there was an eerie feeling about the place. We were far from the only group there, but the vastness of the camp made it…
Day 8 Blog — Making Our Way Through Munich
And just like that, we are over halfway through this trip! Time has been absolutely flying here. From getting to know all of my travel companions to learning more about Augsburg and Germany, we have had quite the packed schedule this last week. To celebrate this milestone of being about halfway through, we headed to…
Day 7 Blog — A Much Needed Chill Day
Today was a little bit less structured than our past days have been, and frankly, it was much needed. We didn’t have anything on the schedule until 1:30, so our group took advantage of the free time by exploring a museum called Schaezlerpalais. In here, we were able to take in some historic artwork and…
Day 6 Blog — Terrible Towels in Neuschwanstein!?
After days of factory tours and industry exploration, we headed off to Neuschwanstein to see the castle built by the “Crazy King” Ludwig II. When we first stepped off the bus, it felt like we had teleported to another world. The mountains were steep and tall, dwarfing our group entirely, and there was a beauty…
Day 5 Blog — Robots, Robots, and More Robots
The KUKA factory was one of the most interesting places I have ever seen, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. When I heard we were touring a factory that made the robots that made cars, I was initially pretty skeptical as to just how interesting it would be. Regardless, we all hopped into the…
Day 4 Blog — BMW and Olympiapark
Getting on the bus to head out to the BMW factory, I was pretty unsure of just what to expect. I had never seen a real large-scale production line before, and I was quite interested to learn more. After our long ride, we arrived at the BMW headquarters, where we quickly heard some facts about…
Day 3 Blog — Exploring The University of Augsburg
Coming from such a rural campus, seeing the University of Augsburg was a complete shock to me. It’s not like I had never seen a rural campus before, as I toured plenty whenever I was choosing where to attend college for myself, but none of those campuses were quite like what they have here in…
Day 2 Blog — Taking it All In
Stepping foot in Augsburg for the first time, I was immediately filled with a sense of curiosity about just how different these next two weeks would feel for me. From the openness of the fields, seemingly never touched by humans, to the small, clustered communities across the country, all looking roughly the same, I knew…
Day 15: Industry, Culture, History: Bavaria’s One Lesson
After two weeks of being in Germany, there is so much to reflect on. The moment I keep returning to is standing on the mountain behind Neuschwanstein. After days of early mornings, thousands of steps, and constantly being on the move, something shifted when I reached the top. I remember writing that the beauty overwhelmed…
Day 14: Two Weeks, A Lifetime of Lessons: Auf Wiedersehen
It was time to go homeeeeeee. This was a sad day, but also a day I was looking forward to. I loved Germany more than words can describe. I learned so much about a different culture. From the roots of how it was built, to the people who left an impact, and so much more….
Day 13: When Am I Going to Be in Munich Again?
After two weeks of tours and continuous work, mixed in with a little bit of fun, we had a day to ourselves. We were very excited about this day and originally planned to visit Salzburg, Austria. But after thinking for a few days, we realized how tired we were and how much we had been…
Day 12 – Our Last Company Visit, Audi
Today was our last company visit, and it might have been my favorite one yet. We had already done the presentation and Q&A with the Audi employee last week, so today was focused entirely on the factory tour and a walk through the museum. We arrived a little early, so we took some time to…