Nicki Wealand, Moving the Cities: Germany Fall 2023
This study abroad experience was primarily a week-long design sprint to help with the UN Sustainability Goals. I joined this experience because I am doing Environmental Engineering and the Sustainability Certificate, so the sustainability component really interested me. During the project I really enjoyed learning more about the sustainability components of the US sustainability goals, but I also really enjoyed the design and entrepreneurship part of the program. Working through the process and pitching the final idea was something that I really enjoyed, and a process that I had never done before. The ideation process was something I found myself wanting to do again, and I am adding the Design and Entrepreneurship minor to my course schedule at Pitt to hopefully go into a co-op or work position where I would get to use these skills again. In terms of career, I also really liked the environmental policy part of the program and am also considering how I to go into a career that isn’t law but would still be involved in policy. My group almost created a new policy to achieve our governmental goal and switched to the idea that we finished with close to the end of the project. I liked the idea we ended up with, and we were able to win 2nd place with it, but I really loved looking into all the nuances of creating and enforcing policy and law, so I may be looking into a career in down that path in addition to the design and entrepreneurship aspect.
For me personally, this program emphasized that I want to travel and learn new things in more parts of the world. I have been to various places in North and South America, but going to Germany was my first time traveling to Europe, and I really enjoyed it. Getting to explore the cities that I was in, make international friends, and learn about the history and culture of a completely different country than my own was so much more than I thought it would be, and I had high expectations going in! I thought it was so cool that places so far away can be so different from back home but have so many similarities that I can relate to, like the thrift store in Münster having a Steelers jersey. I decided while on this trip that I would like to try to do a full semester abroad in a different country, and travel more on my own as well. I have second cousins in Poland that tried to invite me to come stay with them for a few days when they saw I was in Germany, and I have a previous foreign exchange student in Italy whose family has said they could host me, so I will definitely be back to Europe soon.
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