Summer 2014: International Corporate Tour

As I talk to fellow students about their summers, many of them said that they regretted not going abroad. I have already studied abroad and absolutely loved it! If you are not interested in taking classes abroad, MSU has other international opportunities that are not for academic credit.

The main highlight of my summer was traveling across Europe on the International Corporate Tour (ICT). The ICT is put on by the Lear Corporation Career Services Center, which is located in the Eppley Center attached to the Business College Complex. The goal of the trips is for freshman and sophomores in business and engineering to be exposed to different places and types of careers in industry. In addition to the ICT Europe trip, there is also an ICT China trip.

We started off the trip by spending a few days in London. We stayed at the beautiful Regent's University in Regent's Park. Some other MSU study abroad programs are housed at Regent's, so we ran into some other MSU students just finishing a study abroad in London.

Regent's University, our accommodations in London

Next, we flew to Germany and spent about 2 days in the Cologne area. Some participants brought an MSU flag for pictures which attracted some alumni. In front of the famous Cologne Cathedral, we ran into some girls who had just graduated from MSU who were traveling around Europe. Go Green!

Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany

We stopped in Luxembourg next for about 3 days. I thought that Luxembourg city was very beautiful and different from any place I had ever been.

Luxembourg City

National Bank Museum, Luxembourg City

From Luxembourg City, we spent an entire day driving to Geneva, Switzerland. So, if you are not a fan of long bus rides, another one of MSU's learning abroad experiences might be better for you.

Geneva, Switzerland, with the Jet d'Eau and Lake Geneva

Next we traveled to Turin, Italy, and visited Diageo while we were there. The site was a historic winery, so we got to see a mini museum of glasses, a hand-dug wine cellar, and old spices and distillation apparatuses that were historically used to make beverages. This was one of my favorite site visits because I learned about the history of the site and region in addition to touring their modern bottling facilities.

Taking a tour of the Diageo facilities

I liked that I was able to see companies from a business perspective as well as the engineering perspective. When company representatives come to speak at meetings put on by engineering student groups, they tend to focus on engineering roles within their company. Seeing the different types of people needed to run all areas of the company helped me appreciated the diversity in the workplace and engineering career paths.

We finished our European tour in Venice, Italy. We visited 7 companies (BP, GM, Eaton, ArcelorMittal, Diageo, Bosch, and ALCOA) on our trip, but still had a lot of free time to explore the cities. We visited 5 countries (UK, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Italy) and also drove through France. Our program was just over 2 weeks long, so we visited a lot of companies and countries in a short amount of time. I thought that going on this trip was a fun way to build my resume and learn about careers.

If you want more information on the International Corporate Tours, visit http://lear.broad.msu.edu/students/international-corporate-tours/