America is wonderful!Students of Aalen University in the USA

Holger Havlin, Prof. Dr. Harro Heilmann and Jan Gross in Calaveras Big Trees State Park in California.

Tu, 30. October 2018

Franziska Steidle, Holger Havlin and Jan Gross are spending the last semester of their Mechanical Engineering / Production and Management studies in the USA. They are the first exchange students of their degree programme to spend a semester at a partner university in the United States.

Franziska Steidle is at the Colorado School of Mines in Colorado; Holger Haylin and Jan Gross are at the Unviersity of the Pacific in California. At the end of August, the three future engineers landed in the United States and the Head of their study department, Professor Dr. Harro Heilmann, visited them there. He established academic relations to universities in California during visits in 2014 and 2015 and regularly fosters his contacts at US-partner universities. “Now we have exchange students there for the first time, so of course I wanted to visit them”, exclaims the Department Head. Heilmann took a trip with the two young men to Calaveras Big Trees State Park, the woods sheltered by giant sequoia trees. He also visited Steidle at her campus in Golden, Colorado.

One can see many „Internationals“, mainly from Asia and South America, who are completing their studies in the USA. “Our three students are totally happy and super motivated. They wonder why more students don’t go to the USA”, reflects Heilmann.

“Studying at partner universities is, to some extent, ambitious”, says Heilmann. “In comparison to German universities, students write papers and have tests nearly every week of the semester. The supervisory relationships are often more intense, since there are more professors per student”. Both universities are medium-sized institutions, similar to Aalen University. Currently, around 4,800 Bachelor students are studying in the fields of Engineering and Business at the public Colorado School of Mines. At the private Pacific University, there are nearly 6,200 students from a broad spectrum of studies. The fall semester begins around the end of August and beginning of September and already ends at Christmas, so that the exchange students can spend the holidays in their home countries. Afterwards, the next step for them is searching for a place to write their Bachelor thesis. Until then, the next exchange students can already start preparing for their path to the USA.


Photo credits: © Hochschule Aalen / Johannes Heilmann