I can not believe I am starting the last week of my internship. The past seven weeks have gone by so fast. I am going to try to make the most of my last week here. I feel like there is still so many places I want to see in Berlin and lots of places I want to go back to. My parents are coming this week so I am excited to show them around.
This week at my internship I finished the main part of my project. My supervisor was happy with the results and we had a meeting to show the final product. There were a couple of changes that had to be made afterwards. It only took me the rest of that day to complete those. After that part was done, I started on three other variations of the product. These ones are a lot simpler than the other one, so it only took me a day to complete them. There were little changes with these as well, but it was easy to update. The product as a whole is very cohesive and anyone can tell that there was a great level of detail put into it.
I would say at my company success is defined as completing work to be the best it can be. I think this is accurate because I thought I was done with my project several times before I actually was. There was a lot of attention to very small details that anyone would normally look right over. I think the German culture has a very strong emphasis on detail. They do not consider work complete unless it is done to their specific standards. I think in the US it a a lot more relaxed on the details. For the US, when the actual work is finished, the whole project is finished.
This past week outside of my internship I tried to spend some time doing things around Berlin. On Wednesday night, we had a meeting with our program director. We went out for dinner and drinks. It was at a cute place that had a nice outside seating area. It was nice to see our program director and the students from the other schools. It is interesting to talk to everyone and hear about their internship experiences and compare them.
On Thursday night I went out with some of the other people on the program. We went to a bar that was on the top of a parking garage. It was a little confusing getting there because we did not know that it was in a parking garage. When we got out of the elevator we were standing in the parking garage and did not know where to go. There were two people in front of us going there so we just followed them. Once we went in, it was a lot bigger of a space than I thought. There were a couple different areas up there. We sat at a picnic table outside for a while before it got cold out. The place was very cool and I would definitely go back there. One of my co-workers told me it is his favorite bar and I can see why.
On Friday night I also went out with some of the people in our program. We went to a club called Watergate. It was on the water (as expected) and it had a nice vibe. We had a drink and sat out at the water for awhile. We eventually went inside to one of the dance floors and it was interesting. This club only played techno music, so I found it hard to enjoy it. I just do not understand how people like listening to it. I guess it takes a lot of getting used to.
On Saturday I went to a pizza festival. There were 15 vendors there that were all selling margarita and marinara pizza, along with a couple of their specialty pizzas. We got a margarita and a zucchini and sausage pizza. They were both very good. Later in the night we went to a club that was a little farther away. It was pouring rain and we had to wait outside for at least an hour and a half. I would say the wait was worth it though. Once we go in I could see why it is so popular. It was like a mini village in there. There were different buildings you could go into for drinks, food, or dance floors.
So far this program has been a great experience. I am very excited to go home, but I’m sure when I am home I will miss it a lot.