As a result of this study abroad experience to South Korea, I have gained not only cultural experience, but also professional experience. We were able to witness different workplace environments and also work with students with different backgrounds. Samsung Biologics was the company that had the most similarities to my profession of bioengineering, so I…
Tag: Summer 2019
Entry #11 An overview
One of the key parts of this trip was discussing ethical issues for my profession. Being ethical is a huge part of being an engineer because you are creating products that keep people safe and help keep them alive. The key lesson from the trip came from Horiba. They were showing us their sales and…
Day 12: Gardens and Goodbyes
Our final day was spent in the morning at the Yu garden. The Yu garden was built by a son to please his parents and if I were his mom I would be very happy. It is absolutely a gorgeous place. I am just going to have to let the pictures speak for themselves on…
Entry #10 The final day in China
Sadly, today was the last full day in China, which was very sad, but I was a bit homesick after being gone for two weeks. It was sad to leave Lilian, Dora, and Nancy in China and they were sad to see us go. In the morning we learned about how the population in Shanghai…
Entry #9 The edge of the world
Today started off super early at seven AM when we took the bus to a port outside of Shanghai. We met a woman from Pitt who went to China for her job in marketing. She talked about her experience abroad and how hard it is to move countries. She said it’s very hard to see…
Entry #8 Got a look at Chinese business
Today we went to two companies based in Shanghai. The first company we went to was American Chamber of Commerce. They talked to us about the effects that the trade war had on their company. The Chinese companies that they were working with started to pull out because the trust between America and China was…
Entry #7 Shanghai is Spectacular
This was our first full day in Shanghai and it completely blew me away. The day before we went on a river cruise to see the city and it was lit up like a Christmas tree. We also learned how Shanghai is laid out with West Shanghai being old and East Shanghai being new with…
Entry #6 An incredible sight to see
The second day in Xi’an started like any other day by getting some of the fabulous breakfast that the hotel had provided for us. On the bus ride to the Terracotta warriors our tour guide Kevin talked to us about elements in China. In the United States we only have four elements, earth, wind, and…
Entry #5 First day in Xi’an
On the first full day in Xi’an we went to the children’s village on the top of a mountain outside of Xi’an. The children’s village was started in nine-teen ninety-six to help children whose parents have gone to prison with an education, a good life, and preparing them for the future. The kids at the…
Day 11: A Pilgrimage for Coffee
Today was our visit to the Shanghai Deep Sea Port, one of the biggest ports in China and a hub for trade in the country. The drive was about two hours, so a Pitt alum who lived in China was invited to come and speak with us on the ride there. Her name was Sarah,…
Entry #4 Tiananmen Square and the Temple of Heaven
Today was the last day in Beijing. I was feeling very American so the only thing I ate for breakfast were Rice Krispies. After breakfast we went to see Tiananmen square and the forbidden city at the center of Beijing. Tiananmen square is the third largest square in the world, and one of the most…
The Long Road Home
This adventure ended, as all great adventures do, with the long road home. Hence, our last day in Korea was spent traveling, which began with an approximately five-hour bus ride from Busan back to the airport in Seoul. As the hills whizzed by outside the window, it still felt surreal to me that we were…
Entry #3 Huawei visit
On the third day of the trip we went to our first company Huawei. We visited the research and development center in Beijing. This company visit blew me out of the water from the moment we stepped into the building. It was a marble building with an enormous chandelier hanging above. After we entered the…
Entry #2 Balling in Beijing
On the second day in Beijing we went to the Central university of Finance and Economics and attended a lecture about big data and data analytics. This lecture emphasized how rapidly the smartphone market was growing in China. In the year two-thousand there were only two million smartphone users in China. By the year two-thousand…
Day 10: One for the Engineers
Today was another day full of company visits. We first headed over to Amcham, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. Whereas most of the visits so far have been from Chinese natives, the people we talked to were actually expats, so it was cool to get to hear a viewpoint of the Chinese market…
Entry #1: First Day Abroad
On the first day of the trip we left for the Great Wall at 8 am. Before we left for the wall, we got the all-inclusive breakfast and it was incredible. There was a wide arrangement of food from fried rice to pork and chicken dumplings. Along with the food there were a ton of…
Day 9: ECUST
Today was our first full day in Shanghai, Nancy’s home city, and man I want to move here !! We spent our morning at ECUST the East China University of Science and Technology. When we arrived we got a tour of their gorgeous campus in the middle of the city. It occurred to me that…
Day 7: Terra-Cotta and Tough Roads
Today we had to wake up early again so we could get to our first destination early, the Terra-Cotta Warriors. We had to go early so we could try to beat the crowds a little bit, otherwise it would have been hard to get a good view of the warriors in the pit. There were…
Day 6: Cherries and Kisses
After a day of pretty chill travel and a quick tour around the Muslim district the day before, it was our first full day in Xi’an. We had to leave a bit early to head outside the city to the Sun Village, a place where kids live who have parents in prison. Driving out into…
South Korea: Final Summary
It was an amazing two weeks in South Korea that was full of experiences that I will remember for the rest of my life. As this was my first time traveling to internationally, it changed my perspective on many things and taught me about a different culture that will impact me as I grow and…