This experience may have lasted 2 weeks, but the friends that I have made and the perspectives that I have learned from will last a lifetime. It is crazy how we all started off as complete strangers, but we became a very close group towards the end. This is not just true with the other…
Tag: Liam McLaughlin
Day 13: A day off
Today, for my free day, I wanted to just take it easy at the hotel. I have not gotten much sleep, and I have seen so many sites, that I was just not in the mood to wake up early for a train ride out to Austria. So today, I slept in until about 12,…
Day 12: Bavarian Breakfast and Oberammergau
We started today with a hearty breakfast in Baindlkirch. This was an authentic Bavarian breakfast with pretzels and sausages. It was excellent. Everyone got 2 sausages and a pretzel, but I ate about 4 sausages and 2 pretzels. The place was in a very rural area, so the landscape was beautiful. It was also interesting…
Day 11: Presentations
Today, we had our final presentations scheduled for 5:30. This meant that I was able to sleep in, and I took full advantage of that and slept in until 11. This was awesome. Our group then left to the University of Augsburg at around 12:30, and we ate lunch there. We then met up with…
Day 10: H&K and preparation for the presentation
Today we went to Horauf and Kohler, a plastics manufacturer for automobile companies. This tour was definitely different from all the other tours because our guide gave it in German while someone else translated it. This company fit the model of a German mittelstadt, a business that is medium sized. Unlike most of the facilities…
Day 9: Politics and Kuka
We started off today with a trip to the University of Augsburg where we got a lecture about German politics. I learned a lot about German politics; particularly that Angela Merkel is at the center right party called the Christian Democratic Union. It is also interesting that the Christian Democratic Union is really concerned about…
Day 8: Dachau
Today, we went to Dachau, a concentration camp. We started the tour with an introduction from our guide about Dachau. I learned that it was not an extermination camp but a reeducation camp. A lot of the prisoners had to work, but anyone who did not or could not work was killed. The camp contained…
Day 7: Munich
Today, we spent the day at Munich. Munich was an absolutely beautiful city; it is pretty modern but historical. They had large statues and open space. It seemed like the streets and the sidewalks were the same thing. After our tour, we had about 5-5 hours of free time. We went to the Hofbrauhaus, and…
Day 6: Ulm, Pfannkuchenhaus, BMW
We started off today by heading to Ulm. The first thing that we did here was go up the Ulm Minster, the tallest church in the world. It has 768 steps and is 530 feet tall. Outside there were a bunch of blue Einstein figures since Ulm was his birthplace. We made it to the…
Day 5: Neuschwanstein and Wieskirche
We started the day with a trip to the Neuschwanstein castle, a beautiful castle built by a Bavarian king who was young and who spent way too much money. We walked up a big hill to get there, and the views were amazing. The castle was absolutely stunning, but we were not allowed to take…
Day 4: Regensburg and SGL
We started today off with a long bus ride to Continental headquarters. Here, we had a presentation that went through Continental’s business model. I was astounded because I thought that they were just involved in tires. Turns out that they are involved in a wide range of subjects in the automotive industry such as car…
Day 3: The Journey continues
Today started off with a trip to SGL headquarters where we learned about the carbon fiber manufacturing process and their business overview. It is very interesting how versatile carbon fiber is and how it is used in a lot of different products. The German businesspeople seemed to have a vast knowledge about the technical process…
Day 2: Danke
We started off the day taking a streetcar to the university of Augsburg. The streetcar seemed very clean. Much cleaner than US public transportation. The university was astonishingly modern with it’s architectural style. We then split up into our groups with German students to create a presentation about Germany. The German students seemed to take…
Day 1: The Foundation
After a day full of traveling, we are finally here! The culture shock came right away in the airport. In the bathroom, the towels are cloth and reusable, meaning that when I put my hands under the towel dispenser, the towel comes out, I dry my hands, and it goes back in. I don’t really…
Who am I?
Hey everyone! My name is Liam, and I am really excited to start our journey in Germany! I am in the University of Pittsburgh business school, but I am from Philadelphia. I used to play football and lacrosse, and I like weightlifting in my free time. I am a finance major,and I am very interested…