New horizons for Real World Engineering
The Real World Engineering program, which gives students a taste of what engineering looks like outside the classroom, recently took a trip to Germany, a powerhouse for sustainable engineering.
What do hydrogen fuel cells, roads made from compacted ash, and photon-powered computers have in common?
They’re all innovations that engineers are designing or deploying to help make Germany a bit greener—just ask the undergraduates who went to go see them up close.
Through the Real World Engineering Program, now in its 13th year, a cohort of students recently embarked on a four-week journey to Germany to witness the engineering principles they’ve learned in the classroom in action.
Namky Eun Llovet, a senior mechanical engineering major, was excited to hear that the program was headed to Germany this year, a nation considered a frontrunner in manufacturing, mechanical engineering, and sustainability. He also had a little bit of German in his back pocket from some Duolingo lessons he’d completed in high school.
Many of the students on the trip, however, didn’t know the language at all. Luckily, they all kicked off the program with a three-week German language bootcamp in the town of Freiburg im Breisgau, where they quickly grew close. Especially strong bonds were forged over food, whether it be Lange Rote bratwurst—Freiburg’s famous “long red” sausage—or fresh fruit.
“We liked visiting the farmer’s market. We would go there before class, grab some strawberries or blueberries to share, and then they’d be gone before we finished class,” says Llovet.
Before they knew it, the students were ready to take off for Stuttgart, the city and manufacturing hub where they would spend the last week of the program visiting companies, talking to their engineers, and learning from them at work.
At EnBW, an energy supplier, they learned about waste management, particularly strategies to benefit from burning trash—whether it be by creating plaster for walls or road filling from the dust and ashes, or recovering some energy in the process in the form of hydrogen gas.
“That’s the company that changed my perspective the most. In the US, we just throw our trash in the landfill and wait, or we burn our trash but don’t get anything out of it,” says Llovet. “Coming back here, I started to notice a lot more how much plastic packaging we use, and the abundance of items that we receive but don’t really use.”
The students also paid a visit to Q.ANT, a company working toward faster, cleaner computers that use light as the basis for computation instead of electricity, and Bosch and cellcentric, which are both developing hydrogen fuel cells as a more sustainable alternative to diesel engines. They saw the progress of artificial intelligence and robotics research while touring some universities, too.
The trip was a unique opportunity to learn not only about the culture in Germany broadly, but also the country’s values and politics and how they shape the engineering culture.
“These companies are a good representation of what the overall community is like. Their priorities point toward the direction where the industry, at least in Germany, is headed, and it’s very much toward sustainability,” reflects Llovet.
If you’ve been toying with the idea of studying or working abroad, there’s no time like the present to give it a shot, says Llovet. “Right now, a lot of countries are trying to be flexible in the way that they recruit US international workers or students, and universities like Carnegie Mellon are some of their prime targets.”
Thanks to the Real World Engineering program, I realized that I can just reach out to engineers anywhere and talk to them.
Namky Eun Llovet, undergraduate student ('26), Mechanical Engineering
Llovet is heeding that advice, too. With his mechanical engineering coursework already completed, he plans to spend his last year studying abroad. First, he’s headed to Japan, a leader in the entertainment industry. Llovet currently works at the Entertainment Technology Center making a pinball “experience,” and hopes to learn more from engineers in Japan about applying engineering in an entertainment context. From there, he’ll head to Madrid or Switzerland.
“There, I’m going to try to do the same thing. I really like talking to engineers, and I get to learn a lot more by talking to them,” Llovet says. “Thanks to the Real World Engineering program, I realized that I can just reach out to engineers anywhere and talk to them.”
The Real World Engineering program’s trip across the Atlantic was supported by College of Engineering study abroad funding and the Max Kade Foundation. Learn more about Real World Engineering.