All posts by Talaial Alina

Changed but Still the Same

Finals are finally over and my stay in Bochum, Germany has almost concluded. On Monday, 11JUN18, I took two exams: German and Heat Transfer. We had a brief review session of German from 0830 to 0900 and my German exam lasted from 0900 to 1200. During the exam, I was confident that I understood most ...

The Finals Are Near

The last week to the end of the Bochum program. This was the calm before the storm. We began to wrap up our lab reports and independent lab project before we could start studying for our finals. Our Heat Transfer professor, Dr. Wrenn, and our Fluid Mechanics professor, Dr. Pollack, told us what we needed ...

Tech Struggles and Comfort Food

This was probably my most aggravating week here. On my last day in Munich, my computer showed its initial signs of failure. It kept stating that its charging percentage was at 0% and it took three tries to turn on the computer and show a display (Figure 1). When I returned home to Bochum, my ...

A Break and Trek through Western and Eastern Europe

The great holiday week began with a turbulent start. I spent two hours after we were working on our lab report packing my luggage. I did not pay attention to the fact that the local U-bahn trains alter their schedules based on the time of day and I did not even think about when to ...

Awaiting a Break

This was quite a short week before the big holiday week. I went through my usual routine of working on weekly lab reports with my team members. There were some noteworthy events that occurred however. Fall/Winter Drexel co-op job search opened up recently and I applied to five jobs leaning toward my interest in pharmaceuticals. ...

Cleaning and Wondering

The countdown to the last month of my program begins. This week I have accomplished two major goals: cleaning the bathroom and traveling to Berlin. Since I live at home with my parents, I have never really took the opportunity to do basic chores like cleaning since my parents always took care of these tasks ...

German Movie Theaters & Work

Another exciting week at Bochum but I did not go on too many adventures this time. I went to see Avengers: Infinity War because one of the other program participants recommended that we go to it. It was played in Union Film Theater Bochum a movie theater located in Bermudadreieck, a collection of shops and ...

Writing and a Zurich Journey

Another week of “fun” and long lab reports and an interesting trip to Zurich. I worked on a group lab report with my classmates involving the lab I mentioned in my earlier blog post titled “Exploration Beyond the Bubble”. Writing this report was an extremely time consuming process. I worked with two other classmates on ...

Exploration Beyond the Bubble

My situation is much more relaxed now, especially regarding food. I have a stronger idea of what foods to eat everyday. Since my time is much more limited than if I had lived at home, I have focused on eating these three daily meals. First, I eat bread with marmalade, and tea in the morning ...

A Lot More to Learn

The first week of school. Oh how I can remember the stress of studying for exams and doing homework. I began Monday worrying about how I would find the right amount of food to sustain me for the week. I cooked a potato and vegetable stew but I added a strong minty vegetable which really ...