{"id":76122,"date":"2023-02-02T20:37:01","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T01:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/engineering\/?p=76122"},"modified":"2023-02-02T20:37:01","modified_gmt":"2023-02-03T01:37:01","slug":"go-away-fernweh-reboot-of-the-j-term-german-study-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/engineering\/go-away-fernweh-reboot-of-the-j-term-german-study-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Go away, “Fernweh”! Reboot of the J Term German Study Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"
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J Term students shortly after arrival in Munich, Germany<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a long hiatus due to pandemic-related travel restrictions, the German IEP was finally able to realize its annual DAAD- and Max Kade-sponsored \u201cGermany Today: Science, Technology, Culture\u201d <\/span>J Term <\/span>study tour in January 2023 with a small yet enthusiastic group of students. Just after the start of the new year, students began with a three-day preparation unit with Dr. Shawna Iula on campus in Kingston during which they set personal goals for their time abroad, learned about German cultural practices and history, researched background information on the companies and institutions they would visit, read a story set in one of the stops on the tour and practiced interviewing skills in German. On January 6th, students embarked on the immersion part of the experience, which lasted from January 7th <\/span>to the <\/span>20th.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Left: Munich’s famous Rathaus and Glockenspiel, a must-see for all visitors; Center: BMW Welt offers the opportunity to engage with the automaker’s contemporary vehicles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Right: Checking out a hands-on exhibit at the BMW Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The two weeks that followed were a whirlwind of information, city tours in each location, activities, traditional foods and meeting new people. The trip began in Munich, where students spent the longest leg of their journey exploring and learning all about the city and some IEP partner companies. Highlights included visits to the BMW Museum\/Welt and the Deutsches Museum, a tour of MTU Aero Engines, a guided tour of the Max Beckmann exhibit at the Pinakothek, a stroll through Munich\u2019s English Gardens, and a meet-up with URI and partner university alumni at the Wirtshaus zur Brez’n. After such a long time without visiting our alumni abroad, the IEP was grateful for this dinner, as well as the other two that followed in Frankfurt and Braunschweig, all of which were graciously hosted by URI Alumni Foundation\u2019s <\/span>Vice President for Development Jeff Cabral<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Left top: Touring MTU Aero Engines; Left bottom: J Term group poses in front of the Augustiner Hofbr\u00e4uhaus; Right: Alumni meetup in Munich<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


\nNext, the group spent two action-packed days each in Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Darmstadt and Braunschweig. In Stuttgart, students toured the Porsche and Mercedes-Benz Museums, ate at VfB Stuttgart\u2019s club restaurant, checked out the international offerings at the famous Markthalle, and had a meet-and-greet with local students from the Duale Hochschule Baden-W\u00fcrttemberg.
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Getting up close and personal with the vehicles at the Porsche Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Delving into the history and evolution of Mercedes-Benz and Daimler cars<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Heidelberg presented students with a deep dive into an important phase in German history with a visit to the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. They also wandered Heidelberg Castle\u2019s grounds, discovered how medicinal advice, practices and treatments evolved over time at the on-site Apothecary Museum, stopped by the local zoo and went antiquing in the heart of the city using their German skills. This part of the study tour was made possible by help from Gunnar Schanno of the Steuben-Schurz Society.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Observing the city of Heidelberg from its picturesque castle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Getting a taste of traditional German cuisine at Heidelberg’s Kulturbrauerei <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In Darmstadt, the course participants were welcomed by Julia Fitzthum and Christian Tischer<\/span> from TU Darmstadt\u2019s International Relations and Mobility Office. They led the group around the city and TU Darmstadt\u2019s campuses and introduced the URI students to the incoming TUDa exchange students who will be at URI in the fall. Fourth-year German IEP and mechanical engineering student Katie Field gave a presentation about her current research project in the Paper Manufacturing and Mechanical Process Engineering Lab, where she seeks to protect fawns from being killed by tractors through the use of scarecrows designed with paper. Students also took a peek inside the ETA Fabrik (Energy Technologies and Applications in Production Lab) and found out more about how the high-tech machining processes there could operate sustainably by optimizing energy and resource efficiency and by shifting resources to where they are needed within the space in response to real-time events. Featured in this city\u2019s activities was an exploration of the Landeskunde Museum, rich with exhibits of historical, cultural, anthropological and biological importance. Both evenings during the stay in Darmstadt included evenings spent in Frankfurt, including a tour of the R\u00f6mer and the Neue Altstadt there hosted by Steuben-Schurz\u2019s Juliane Adameit and a very well-attended alumni dinner at <\/span>Apfelwein Solzer<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Left A photo of the Mathildenh\u00f6he, a UNESCO World Heritage Site;  Right: A student observes a series of Stolpersteine, each a small brass plate inscribed with the name(s) and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Students also took a peek inside the ETA Fabrik (Energy Technologies and Applications in Production Lab) and found out more about how the high-tech machining processes there could operate sustainably by optimizing energy and resource efficiency and by shifting resources to where they are needed within the space in response to real-time events. Featured in this city\u2019s activities was an exploration of the rich Landeskunde (Hessian State) Museum, full of exhibits of historical, cultural, anthropological and biological importance. Both evenings during the stay in Darmstadt included evenings spent in Frankfurt, including a tour of the R\u00f6mer and the Neue Altstadt there hosted by Steuben-Schurz\u2019s Juliane Adameit and a well-attended alumni dinner at <\/span>Apfelwein Solzer<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Left: The Neue Altstadt (New Old City) in Frankfurt, the reconstruction of which was finished in 2018; Center and right: Scenes from the alumni dinner in Frankfurt. Alums Christian H\u00e4fner ’04 (center) and Paulo Cardoso ’06 (bottom right, holding RI sign) just can’t hide that Rhody pride!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The time that students spent in Braunschweig offered them a similar level of exposure as to what university life as an IEPer will be like there. TU Braunschweig\u2019s Anne-Kathrin Kaiser organized a get-together with incoming TUBS exchange students who will come to Kingston during the next academic year. They were also able to check out some of the lab spaces on campus. Professor Georg Garnweitner, head of the Institute of Particle Technology (iPAT), along with IEP students Ailill Smith and Melissa Scheider, both there for their semester of study, presented their current research projects within iPAT. Ailill\u2019s focus is on lithium ion batteries and how they can be made more safe, sustainable and economical, while Melissa\u2019s research involves how drug delivery can be made more efficient. On the second day, participants went on a factory tour of Volkswagen\u2019s plant in Wolfsburg, where they witnessed people and robots <\/span>actively<\/span> working in beautiful harmony on all stages of the production line. A final URI\/exchange alumni dinner happened in Braunschweig at the Hotel Landhaus Seela, again yielding a wonderful turnout. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Left: Getting to know the incoming TUBS exchange students; Center: Sun sets over Braunschweig’s famed Happy Rizzi House (right)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Right: Who’s in the room? Recognizing the members of different student and alumni groups at the Braunschweig alumni gathering<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The study tour ended with a day-long stop in the northern port city of Hamburg. Here, part of the group visited DESY (the German Electron Synchrotron), a national research center that operates particle accelerators to learn more about the structure of matter. Meanwhile, the other third visited URI\u2019s International Business Program partner HAW Hamburg for an informal campus tour, followed by some time observing the historic Speicherstadt (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and checking out the Maritime Museum. The evening ended with a ride up the Elbphilharmonie\u2019s giant escalator – the largest curved one in the world – up to the viewing platform and one last dinner together at the Old Commercial Room, known to celebrities and Hamburg locals alike. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Left top: Playing around with equipment at DESY; Left bottom: A shot of the striking Elbphilharmonie building in Hamburg, where students took in the sights of this port city from the viewing platform; Right: Taking in the sights of Hamburg’s renowned Speicherstadt, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The trip was a fantastic academic growth opportunity for students. It encouraged its participants to get outside of their comfort zones and put their developing German skills to the test by interviewing locals and accomplishing tasks in local establishments, helped them to understand how foreign cultures may compare to their own through intercultural competency reflection assignments, fostered a newfound confidence in handling new situations and hurdles while abroad, and hopefully sparked great curiosity within the students for future global travel. For more on this study tour from students\u2019 perspectives, feel free to scroll through the class\u2019s blog, found <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year\u2019s J Term study tour in Germany was the first to run since the Covid-19 pandemic began. See what our students experienced during this iconic learning opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4861,"featured_media":76204,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iep"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}