Another week has flown by in Berlin, and I can’t believe we’ve already been here for 3 weeks. It feels like landing in Berlin and checking in to our hotel was just a few days ago. This week, we were able to explore even more of the city and we again spent a lot of time with the rest of the group from Pitt. On Saturday, we took a trip to Potsdam. Having such easy access to public transportation here has been so nice, because it feels like there are no restrictions on where we can go. It took us less than an hour to get to Potsdam on one of the regional trains, so we only spent the day there. I had been told by people I work with that Berlin is nothing like the rest of Germany, so I was interested in traveling to a different city to understand this better. Even though Potsdam is not very far from Berlin, it felt like a completely different country. The city streets gave the feeling of a stereotypical small European town, and it felt like we went back in time. While in Potsdam, we had traditional German food and walked around the city. We then visited Sanssouci Palace, which was built in 1745 by King Friedrich, a Prussian King. The Palace itself sat in a beautiful park with fountains and statues, and it was nice to walk through because it surprisingly wasn’t too crowded. We did a self-guided audio tour of the inside of the palace, which was very interesting. We didn’t have time to tour the “New Palace” too, so I plan to go back to Potsdam at some point during the next month to see it. On Sunday, I spent most of the day outside. I got breakfast at a café and sat outside in the park near our hotel. Most of the stores nearby are closed on Sundays, so it’s nice to just relax outside or go on a walk.

So far, I haven’t had to navigate much uncertainty. As I said before, I haven’t been given many tasks, so there’s really not much ambiguity. I would say the only ambiguity I have faced is the result of not knowing what to do with my spare time. However, if I don’t have anything to do, I usually go over to the data automation department to see what they are working on. There has been a lot of discussion in the office about AI and how they are going to both leverage it and manage its threats, so I think my next task will have something to do with that. On Friday, I had to present my research, and we talked about developing a plan that the company could implement to improve their current operations using AI. I am looking forward to hopefully having a set plan for a project that I could work on on my own for a longer period of time. I think that will make my days feel very productive and I will learn a lot more about the consulting industry in general.

Overall, my internship has been good. I still haven’t had much to do, so the days feel really long. This past week, I had a project in which I had to do research about the threats and opportunities having to do AI in the consulting industry, but since being done with that, I have not done much. My office is a lot different from the stereotypical “German” work environment that we were told about before the program. This could be because most of the people working in the office are not German. The environment is not as formal as we thought they would be, and there is not as much of an emphasis on punctuality as I expected there would be. Pretty much everyone in the office is very laid back, and much less formal than we expected. One of the people I work with is originally from Germany and she told me that American bosses she has had in the past were much stricter than any German boss she had had. This was surprising because all of the information I had prior to starting the program made it seem like the German workplace is much stricter than the U.S. I told her this and she was very surprised too. She said that that idea is probably more accurate to older generations.

This week, I am looking forward to having another project to keep me busy, and I am traveling to Hamburg to see more of Germany!