First day at BMW

Thursday i moved out of my Studentenwohnheim and will miss a bunch of my friends back in Braunschweig....and the Lions Racing team as well. One of the members gave me a bottle of jägermeister and a box of small chocolate covered cake ball things. He said he would contact the Formula Studen - Munich team to see if I can tag along and get a Ride to Hockenheimring for competition this August. The train ride was great, I reserved a seat in the Ruhebereich (quiet car) and had window and an outlet. By the time I reached Stuttgart, I had the entire booth to myself to stretch out and relax. I wrote my two page essay on the train about the Kulturelle Unterschied (cultural differences) that I have observed while in Germany. Everything went as scheduled.

I ran off the Forschungs- und Innovationszentrum (Research and Innovation Center which I will refer to as FIZ from now on) which is the same place I had my interview. I was scooped up by one of my interviewers and lead to the office area where I will be working. I met everyone in the office and realized right away, that I really really need to concentrate hard when listening to people. Beyrisch (bavarian) accents are quite different to what I'm used to; it has its own intonation and inflection as well as different word usage and pronunciation. Oh man...

The office has a wall of large windows that open nicely to let a breeze through, and they have small plants growing in the room with strings leading up to and across the cieling so the vines would grow out all over the place. I was shown my desk, then immediately given a plate and silverware.
There is an old tradition in BMW that has been observed since the "old days," called Brotzeit (bread time). Every Friday we have Weisswurst, Pretzels w/ mustard at 10am.

I got to take a ride-along in a test mini. We drove through the city and onto the Autobahn; it was rediculously fun.

The cafeteria has 6-7 stations with different types of food. Fish, meats, salads, soups, pastries etc etc. And its CHEAP. a meal was roughly 4 euro. there are about 8000 employees that work on the BMW campus all over northern München. We walk through the core of FIZ... absolutely stunning architecture.

We get back, and we have to drop my contract off at the headquarters (4-piston tower) and get my Ausweiss (I.D.). We dropped my Contract off and got my I.D. It's official, i'm now employed as an intern  :D

This was only my first day, and I can already tell that I am going to miss it when I leave for the states this September. It's truly a dream job as its the practical, hands on, type of engineering. Monday I will be starting with real work. I hope I can hold up to their expectations, haha. Everyone here is really friendly and i'm extremely eager to do my best to help, and learn during my short stay.

dream job