Conclusion

If there was one thing I did on my trip to Germany it was learn. A learned a little bit about the language like small words and phrases. I also learned about the cities we visited and the different landmarks in those cities from the many tours we had. These tours included both historical and cultural components, allowing me to develop a good feel of the place I was in. The tour I learned most from was likely the tour of the Dachau concentration camp. Along with the city tours, we had many company visits and factory tours, which involved quite a bit of information for us to learn. We visited 5 businesses, a research institute, and a hospital. We learned all about the history, performance figures, and products of the organizations. They told us about their processes, which we got to see firsthand during tours of the factories. We learned about how they work with other businesses to achieve common goals. They described to us what the future might look like for them and what kind of research they do to develop their ideas. I definitely learned the most at KUKA because it was the company that my group was assigned to do our group presentation on. Outside of these things scheduled by the program, I learned a lot from the German students. I got to learn how things are done over there and what life might be like as a German. I learned about our differences, but was surprised at how alike we were. We were able to develop strong friendships with them in two short weeks and I really enjoyed my time with them. Lastly, I learned about myself. I had never been outside the U.S. prior to the program and wasn’t sure how I’d like it. All in all, I would definitely say I made the right choice with the program.