Author: Felicia Koki

Elevator Speech

So I was in Germany for 6 weeks and it was such a great experience. It was not just for vacation but we also took a class called Engineering 202. Every morning around 8:30 we would have class until the early afternoon, stop for a quick lunch break and then have German classes in the afternoon. On the weekends we would travel to different cities in Germany. It was amazing learning about a different culture and also experiencing the history that was in each city.

On the last week of our trip we were allowed to travel where ever we wanted in Europe and I decided to go visit my brother in Paris. It was so lovely spending time with family and I even got to meet up with some of the girls and we went to DisneyLand!

Overall the trip was amazing and I would recommend future engineers at Calvin to go on this trip because you will  not regret it.

Martin Luther

Learning about Martin Luther was very interesting. I had learned about him before in my high school years but actually being at the place where it all began for him was crazy. It was surreal because I learned about a lot of the things  I saw when I was younger. It was also interesting to know that his wife ran the household mostly. It just shows how big of a part women sometimes had. His house was beautiful and bigger than I expected. There was a lot to take in but I enjoyed it very much.

Concentration Camp and the Holocaust museum

Visiting the concentration camp and going to the holocaust museum was one of the best things I did during this trip. They both are place riddled with sadness and pain but I think it is important to remember that history. What happened was horrible and we need to be aware of that so that it doesn’t happen again in the future and to pay respect to those who were victims.

There was this one room in the holocaust museum that was called the Name Room i think. In this room there were white benches scattered around an empty room. On the plane white walls were projections. One by one, a name of a victim was shown on the walls and a little story of their background was told. I could have stayed in that room all day. The Jews were made to feel as if they were nothing, that their lives meant nothing, but they weren’t and sitting in that room made me feel like I was showing them somehow that their lives did matter. That we still think of them today and the struggles they had to go through.

First Thoughts

I came on this Germany trip to experience something new. I thought it would such a great opportunity to study in a different country for 6 weeks! In the class I hoped to learn more about Statistics and Dynamic, especially how it would be applied to real life. My prayer for this summer program was everyone to have a great time. Learn, and experience new things. Germany is such a great country, I just wanted everyone to have fun and immerse themselves in the culture.