Today was super laid back, it was a day to prep for our big presentation with our groups of American and German students. I found that this was one of the days I got to most experience what it could be like to live and work in Germany. I started the day with some breakfast…
Tag: Summer 2024
Audi (Day 9)
After a very mellow day yesterday, I am very excited for the change in tune today. We are going to the Audi car museum and factory tour! I have recently purchased a new Audi A3 and I love it, so when I initially heard about this trip, I was so excited to learn about where…
Final Blog Post/Reflections
After a while looking back on this wonderful experience, I have compiled the highlights, observations, feedback on the trip, and my personal reflection. Observations: Something I observed about Germany as a whole is that it is more like the U.S. than I imagined. I have visited numerous countries, and this was the first time I…
Day 11: Presentation Day + Final Goodbyes
Everyone met up today at the University of Augsburg to present our research on our respective companies and their role in the automobile industry. Given our short amount of time to prepare our 30 minutes presentations, each group did a fantastic job. Collaborating with the students in Germany was a great opportunity. I really learned…
Day 10: Work Day
Today was simply spent working on our presentations. My group met up pretty early at the university compared to what I heard from the other groups. We got there at 9:30 am and got most of the presentation out together. We paused around noon to have some lunch in the Mensa. There were not too…
Germany Day 14: Travel Home & Reflection
Saturday, May 18th marked our last day in Germany. I had stayed up late the night prior, so 7 AM came bright and early for me. We took the bus to the Munich airport, where security took way longer than I thought it would. However, we thankfully made it to our gate on time. As…
Day 13: Salzburg, Austria
Today was our last day in Germany and also a free day! The whole group decided to take the train 3 hours to Salzburg, Austria. It’s an absolutely gorgeous city located just past the Germany-Austria border. It was an hour train ride to Munich, then a transfer to a 2 hour train headed for Salzburg….
Day 12: Regensburg and Walhalla
I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from our visits today, but my expectations were exceeded! We arrived in Regensburg after another long bus ride, and began with a walking city tour. Our tour guide gave us so many interesting facts about the city and it was so beautiful to walk through and see all…
Day 11: Presentation Day and Farewell Dinner
Today was an exciting but (eventually) sad day. We started off bright and early at the University of Augsburg for our presentations. My group went 3rd, and felt very prepared and excited to share our knowledge and findings in our studies on our company (Hoerbiger). My part was focusing on the CASE (connectedness, autonomous, shared,…
Day 10: Presentation Work
Today was a free day designated to working on our presentations, due the following day. Myself and the other American students in my group took the train to the University of Augsburg, where we worked on our presentation with the German students in our group. It was so great to connect with them more on…
Day 9: Audi Museum and Plant in Ingolstadt
It was a bit of a drive until we finally reached the Audi plant and museum in Ingolstadt! I was really looking forward to this day, as I was especially interested to see the final production of luxury cars. We split off in to 2 groups: one did the museum first then the site visit…
Day 8: Dachau
I was struggling in the days leading up to this day, as I knew what I would see would be incredibly sad and extremely humbling. We arrived at Dachau concentration camp at around 10 am after a slightly long bus ride. We were debriefed by our wonderful tour guide about some brief history and facts,…
Austria Adventures! – Day 13
We are finally at our last day of the trip which is a free day! With the free time, I decided to go to Austria with the others on the trip. We took the train making our travel time just under 3 hours to get there. Once getting to Austria, the big group split into…
Adventure to Regensburg – Day 12
Time for another city! This time we made our way to Regensburg. It was just as beautiful as the rest. We started off with a guided tour and got to see the beauty of the city. Afterwards we got to explore on our own and find lunch for ourselves. My favorite thing to see was…
D6: Munich
Big city day! We took the 40-minute train to Munich bright and early. It was cool to me how we could put up to five people on one single train ticket. I think in Germany, it’s really the small things that says a lot about what they think of unnecessary waste, which really adds to…
Day 13: Salzburg
Today we took two trains to Salzburg, Austria, we switched trains in Munich. This is the home of the Sound of Music, the 1965 movie-musical which takes place right before WWII. It is also know for being the town Mozart was born and raised in. We spent several hours exploring this beautiful city and checking…
Day 12: Regensburg + Walhalla
We first had a long city tour of the medieval town of Regensburg on the Danube River. St Peter Cathedral is in the featured photo, unfortunately it was under construction. It was one of the spared cities during WWII, so it’s pretty well preserved. After the guided tour we had some time to explore and…
Day 8: Dachau
Today we went to the first concentration camp built in Germany. Contrary to what most people believe it was no an extermination camp, they are two different things. People were sent here as prisoners to work and most passed away due to the poor living conditions, disease, and starvation. At the start, this camp housed…
Presentation Time! – Day 11
It was finally time for our final presentation on our companies! My company was Audi which was so incredible to present on. It was an amazing opportunity to work with the University of Augsburg students on this project. There were minor technology issues such as the inability to connect to wifi on campus, but the…
Day 13 – Day in Salzburg!
My 13th and final full day of being in Germany was our group’s only free day, where we could chose what we wanted to do. Hearing positive things from last year’s group, we decided to go to Salzburg, Austria. It was about a two and a half hour train ride from Austria, which wasn’t so…