BCom Marketing Management student Tuscany Kitch recently attended a three-week summer exchange programme at the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany. She details the once-in-a-lifetime experience below:

 

“I felt many different emotions upon arrival at Frankfurt International Airport: excitement, to be travelling abroad and to be learning business from another perspective and culture; nervousness, because I was travelling alone and not meeting anyone familiar on the other side; and lastly, a big sense of pride to be representing the University of Pretoria.

 

After meeting all the international students who would become my companions for the next three weeks, we headed for the town of Vallendar – our new place to call home. Vallendar is a picturesque town full of colourful houses and is incredibly rich in history. Its neighbouring town, Koblenz, is home of the Deutsches Eck – the meeting of the Moselle and Rhine rivers – as well as Marksburg Castle – one of the few medieval castles to survive the war. This is also where we did most of our shopping.

 

Throughout the exchange programme, I was lucky enough to experience the lecturing of international professors on subjects such as tax, brand management, and German history and culture, to name a few. Lectures commenced at 9am and ended around 5pm from Monday to Thursday. On some of the days, however, we went on company visits instead of attending lectures. We travelled to Gerolsteiner, the largest mineral water company in Germany, as well as Commerzbank, the largest bank in Germany. It was an incredible experience to get an insight into the process of how water is bottled at Gerolsteiner, as well as to have the priviledge of seeing the trading floor at CommerzBank.

 

The group of exchange students at the Gerolsteiner factory

 

Once lectures on a Thursday came to an end, our weekend had officially begun and what else does one do whilst on exchange except travel? We travelled to Luxembourg, to Brussels in Belgium and to Amsterdam. We had a limited amount of time in Luxembourg, which meant we had to walk fast to get all our site-seeing in. We walked about 20km that day, exploring both the old and the new parts of Luxembourg, which are separated by a lift. When that was all over, we hopped on a bus and headed for Brussels. Here, we wondered around the city centre and did a walking tour in order to visit all the major sites. The following weekend we headed to Amsterdam and visited every sight imaginable – from the Van Gogh museum to the Heineken brewery.

     

The group of travellers in front of the Royal Palace

 

This trip was an experience that will stay with me forever. I not only gained an intimate insight into the German culture – including the delicious food, the friendly people and the wonderful city – but also gained friends for life, from Scotland and America, to Canada, Singapore and China. Thank you to the University of Pretoria for affording me this opportunity and for trusting me to be an international ambassador. I am eternally grateful and can say with 100% certainty that I will be back.

 

The girls wearing our new WHU hoodies.

From left to right: Emma Morales (Canada), Anna Campbell (America), Tuscany Kitch (SA), Brianna Barrett (America), and Nisha Machnoor Konda (India)