Student Profile: Matthew Pearson

My experience with the EUROTECH program has been nothing short of a life-changing experience. My path through the program also speaks to the flexibility and independence that EUROTECH offers a student. I started in the Fall of 2003 with no German experience. I took the first two German courses offered at Uconn and during the year I found out about an opportunity to go to Germany for the summer and get credit for the next two German courses. I took the offer and I spent the Summer of 2004 in Ulm, Germany and earned 8 credits of German and started the advanced German classes in my third semester.

In January of 2006 I began my longer Study Abroad in Stuttgart. This was an amazing period as my German progressed greatly and I was also able to take regular engineering classes at the university in German and got credit for the equivalent classes at UConn. This was great because I did not fall behind on my engineering schedule. I also met my girlfriend during this time. In the three years of college to this point I had gone from a kid who had barely ever left New England to a person who had traveled Germany and Europe extensively and become fluent in a foreign language. By the time I got back for the Fall 2006 semester I only needed one more German class to complete my German degree.

Eager to get back to Germany for the summer of 2007 I asked the professors in the EUROTECH program what I could do and I was recommended an internship program called RISE, or Research Internships in Science and Engineering, offered by the DAAD, German Academic Exchange Program. I applied and accepted a 3 month internship at the University of Konstanz working on a data miner software program. I gained a lot of experience working in a team on a collaborative software program. I also interviewed for full time positions in industry for after graduation in December 2007. In August I accepted a position at PILZ GmbH in Nellingen, Germany as an embedded software developer. I plan on working in Germany for a few years before pursuing a graduate degree.

The EUROTECH program gave me the opportunity to discover a whole other culture and way of life. I certainly like to think that my career possibilities and attractiveness to employers give me a big edge on the competition thanks to the program. I would definitely recommend EUROTECH to any engineer who wants to have an out of the ordinary college experience and study abroad to any college student.