April 23, 2009
School of Business, Coimbatore
 
 
Paderborn is a university town in North Germany. Harish Dixit, Kartheek Kota and Aditya Nair, 2nd MBA students from Amrita, are currently at the University of Paderborn as exchange students. All three are engineers, with B Tech degrees in Mech, Electrical & Electronics, Computer Science & Engg, respectively. The foll is a report on their activities.
 
 

My courses began on April 15th. After from the German Language course, I have registered for five courses, viz. Customer Equity Management, Cross Culture Management, North America — A Socio-Economic Perspective, International Organizational Behaviour – Negotiating Globally, Retail Management and Promotion.
 

We have had a session for Negotiating Globally. It was an introductory session and we were given the gist and road map of the course. There will be a presentation that will carry 50% marks and a final exam for the remaining 50%. We will be taught how to make a presentation before a client. About fifty students have registered for this class.
 

I took a one-month beginner course in German Language. It was great learning German. It was highly recommended by the university and yes, it helps a lot here. Now I am able to speak German somewhat and thus communicate much better with Germans. I am glad to share that I scored 42.5 / 50 in the final exam of this course.
 

I have noticed that Germans are very keen on saving energy. The lights in the hostel are designed to go off automatically when no one is in the area. The Germans love soccer; they are die hard fans of this game. It is great fun playing with soccer them. Students from other countries like Poland, Korea, etc. also join in often.
 

My floor mates are all from China and are very friendly. They invite me for dinner whenever they make vegetarian food. Altogether I feel very lucky to get this opportunity to study with students from all parts of the world and I will give it my best to come out with flying colors.

– Dixit Pathak
 

Paderborn is known for its computer museum, HNF (Heinz Nixdorf Forum), which happens to be the largest computer museum in the world. On April 5th, all exchange students were taken on a tour to this museum. Besides computer technology, the museum also has exhibits that show the history of information and communication technology over the past 5000 years from a Western standpoint.
 

We were given an excellent guided tour in English. We understood the evolution of computing and data storage over time. We saw excellent mechanical calculators built by German scientists in the 17th century. We also saw the binary versions of computers and how they evolved into the present day modern computers, micro- and super-. Shown is a picture of the very first computer, ENIAC.
 

One thing that has struck me here, is the dominance of the Germans in the engineering field. Especially in the auto segment, they have highly reliable systems that run with great precision. May be, this is one thing we can try to learn from them. Our academic classes will begin by April 14th, Kotha Kartheek and I have to take German classes also, which will help us mingle better with the Germans.

– Aditya Nair
 

I met our EURECA* coordinator, Mr. Ahmet Mehic and we talked about my summer project. Mr. Mehic referred to the high standards of this university, and agreed that Amrita also similarly adheres to very high standards. Selection into University of Paderborn is not easy, he said. I told him that selection into Amrita also is difficult.
 

We saw a vintage car show, where companies such as Benz, BMW, Volkswagon, Seat, Honda, Suzuki and Ferrari were exhibiting. For my summer project, I had studied the comparative benchmarking of the sales process of Ford India vs. Chevrolet, Honda, Maruti Suzuki and Toyota, so I was happy to have this chance to learn more about the automotive industry.
 

We have had an opportunity to do some sight-seeing. For instance, we visited Bonn, which has a history that dates back to Roman times. We went to Hoexter, one of the oldest cities in Germany. My classes have just started, I look forward to them with enthusiasm. Overall though, from an academic point of view, I miss ASB. I think that our faculty are some of the best in the world!

– Kotha Kartheek
 

* The EURECA Project under the European Commission’s EMECW Program has sponsored these and several other Amrita students to various European Universities.

See also Amrita Students in Europe