Guten tag! Hallo, Ich studiere und arbeite in Deutschland.
If that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry. It didn’t make sense to me a
month ago either. Translation: I’m studying and working in Germany. I was
fortunate enough to become one of the Ruhr Fellows this summer to represent
Penn abroad and learn more about German engineering and business. The Ruhr
Fellowship program is a two month program created by the ConRuhr and sponsored
by the Initiativkreis Ruhr GmbH (http://international.rub.de/gaststudis/programme/ruhrfellows/index.html.en).
All of this basically means that the once coal focused Ruhr region is
transitioning to a research and industry region within Germany and wants the
top talent to be a part of this industry growth. The Ruhr Fellowship program
does just that by engaging engineers from Penn, Princeton, MIT, and Harvard
through an academic-cultural experience followed by an internship at the top
companies in the region.
Upon arriving in Germany at the beginning of June, I
immediately noticed one key aspect of German culture: efficiency. Naturally
engineers fit in well in a country that is driven by finding the most efficient
process for everything in life. With some German heritage in my background, I
can see the origins of some of my habits in planning and preparing aspects in
my life.
The first month of the program contained the
academic-cultural experience which involved company visits, German language
classes, cultural seminars, lab visits, and academic discussions. Most of these
experiences were something that I will most likely never have the chance to
participate in again. How often are you able to go a mile underground in a coal
mine elevator shaft, ride a monorail through the underground tunnel system of a
coal mine, see the earth falling off before your eyes (with the help of a six
ton machine), have 900 tons of earth above your head, and then leave the mine
with a piece of coal you found on the ground that was buckling under pressure?
Or what about having 200 tons of molten metal pass ten feet in front of you in
an oversized bucket so that you could feel the heat through your jacket? Or
what about being featured in an article in the largest German tabloid and
seeing the printing process from giant roles of paper to delivery on the truck
beds? As a bioengineer, most of the company visits were not something that I
will be focusing on in the future. However, by learning about these companies
and other engineering disciplines in a hands-on manner, I’ve been able to
expand my engineering and business knowledge past the boundaries of
bioengineering. Through the lab visits and academic discussions, I was able to
learn more about the different ways to bend metal with electric current in
mechanical engineering or learn about embedded systems from electrical
engineering. This broadens my engineering knowledge and will allow me to better
understand bioengineering from an interdisciplinary approach.
 |
| After my mine adventure! |
Now we have started the second month of the program which
involves the internship portion. I’m working at BP in the Global Fuels
Technology location in the Quality Assurance and Technical Support team. I
started a week ago not being able to tell you the difference between gasoline
and diesel and now I can describe most of the Fuels Value Chain of the Rhine
Region covering BP’s fuel supply for ten European countries. I’ve been able to
use by technical background in engineering to understand the chemistry behind a
fuels quality incident or behind the tests performed in the lab while applying
the supply chain management I’ve learned in Wharton classes to help optimize
solutions to quality incidents. It has already been an incredible learning
experience in the first week with a few more weeks to learn even more.
Even more important than the academic and professional
aspects of the program, I’ve been able to learn about and live in a new
culture. It’s interesting to compare school systems, grocery stores, and
everything in between with the German students we know here in Bochum, Germany.
Most things are not drastically different (except Germans always wait for the
walk light to appear at a stoplight). Learning about a different culture gives
you the opportunity to question your own and question the standards and values
that are innate within you just from growing up in the culture.
This has been a small taste of study abroad combining
engineering and business with currywursts and pretzels into an epic summer
adventure.
*****
Next up, Emily talks about interning at a local start-up. Check back next week for her story!
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