This week was a bit busier than my previous ones. The company I work at was finalizing the logistics behind a collaboration with another company so there were a lot of phone calls, meetings, and papers to fill out. We were working quickly as everything needed to be finalized by Wednesday evening. After that was finished, it slowed down a bit as my bosses left for a workshop they were partaking in. Some of the tasks I did last week such as translating documents will be used at this workshop, so it is nice to see the tasks I am doing being utilized. I also got the chance to finally explore Potsdam, a city just outside of Berlin, which is where I work. It was very different from Berlin but in a good way. There was a slower pace to everything, and it was nice to not feel like everyone was rushing. I did find it interesting how there was no U-Bahn but rather just buses and trams to get around. We visited Sanssouci Park where we got to tour a bunch of old castles and palaces, and we also walked through the city and the Dutch Quarter. Even though it was a long day, it was a very enjoyable day trip. I will probably go back sometime to explore some of the museums and more into the city.

I also got to speak with a lady that I met during my first week here. She works at one of the companies we toured and spoke with during our orientation. While we were there, she mentioned how she was from America, had studied at Boston College, completed her masters in Germany and now works and lives in Germany. Working in Germany has been something I have occasionally considered and it was one of the reasons that I selected my major of supply chain management. I reached out to her shortly after the meeting during our orientation week. We set something and we got coffee this past week. To start off, I told her a bit about Pitt and she told me a bit about Boston College. She then told me about her experience, her journey, what programs she did, scholarships to apply to, the legal paperwork, where to find housing, quicker ways to get a green card, places to look for jobs, and what she enjoys about life here. I was baffled when she told me that she only paid €250 a semester for her graduate school here, significantly cheaper compared to the USA. It was definitely a lot to take in but all the information was very useful. If I do decide to move back out here, her tips will definitely be handy. Besides that, the rest of my weekend was spent watching the champions league final.

Personally at my internship, a lot of the uncertainty comes from the work that is done with my actual major of supply chain. As stated before, this is my first experience in my field of work, so at times, I am not sure what the standard is or if my work is up to par. When I am given assignments and tasks at my job, I am told what it should look like in the end and then I have a lot of freedom in how I go about completing the actual task. With certain tasks, my boss did provide some examples of previous work so I am able to look back at those to help guide me. When I am working on something new, I try to work through everything myself and think back to what I was told when first given the assignment. There is also a bit of uncertainty concerning the league barrier. While I have been studying German, it is not good enough to get around the workplace. When my bosses are in meetings or taking phone calls, I listen to see how much I understand so I can stay up to date with what is happening. For example, while planning the final logistics for the collaboration, all of the phone calls were in German so I was trying to follow along so that we could discuss it afterwards. If I do miss some things, they make sure to update more or I do ask for clarification. Especially with the language barrier, I make sure to ask for clarification because if I understand something one way but they meant it a different way, I could do something completely opposite of what they wanted me to do. After the first few weeks now, there are certain words I have picked that are used a lot in my office space so I can catch those and know the general topic of the conversation.