Study Abroad Student Testimonial

Maggie Willenbrink  | Denmark

What did you like about DTU's course structure?
DTU has a very practical based approach and is always tying the knowledge you learn back to how it can be useful in your profession. Also, the courses are structured to be four hour long lectures fewer times per week. This enables the instructor to give assignments during lecture time so that you can practice what you just learned with assistance right there if you need it. I also found that these longer lecture periods allowed professors to take us to places like hospitals where what we engineer or research would directly impact others. Those experiences were very powerful inspirational tools.

What did you learn about yourself?
I am much stronger than I originally thought I was. I think it is a huge accomplishment in and of itself that we were all able to live in another country and assimilate to another culture on our own. I have also gained more international perspective, which is a great thing to have in the engineering field. It allows me to approach problems from a different viewpoint than I would have before this experience. This experience far exceeded my expectations. I couldn't have asked for anything better.

Tell us about a memorable moment.
One memorable moment for me was when I went to the opera with one of my friends. He was Spanish, I only spoke English, and the opera was being sung in Italian and the subtitles for it were in Danish. This was an experience I will never forget because he and I were sitting there laughing the whole time because neither of us really understood a thing, but we still enjoyed the opera. It reminded me how truly culturally diverse the world is, and even if you can't understand the language, you can still get so much enjoyment from an experience itself.

Photos
Top: This is Chateau de Chillon in Switzerland on Lake Geneva. Behind it is Mount Blanc in France. I took this while walking on the pedestrian path that goes around the entire lake.

Middle right: Me with two dancers that are part of a group that travels around Europe performing traditional dances. One of my first days in Copenhagen.

Bottom right: Me at one of the stops that we were at on a bus tour through Ireland on my way to the Cliffs of Moehr. I took this bus tour while visiting the Ireland students from the Purdue BME program.