It’s been two decades since the first intrepid cohort of Purdue students traveled to Karlsruhe, Germany to inaugurate GEARE, Purdue’s groundbreaking global engineering and work experience program. Since then, nearly 1,000 Purdue students have participated in this unique combination of study abroad and work abroad.

In May 2023, many of these students and professors returned to Karlsruhe for a 20th anniversary reunion: sharing stories about renegade carousels, Formula 1 road trips, and how the percentage of Purdue ME students studying abroad increased from 1% to 40%.