The Beginning

At Dulles about to leave US

I am sitting at my flight terminal about to kick-off what will be a true six months of interesting experiences, this blog is my way to share some of my travels with my friends and family.

Basic Itinerary:

May 24^th-August 17^th: Interning for Rolls-Royce in Derby England

August 18^th-September 3^rd: Euro Trip

September 5^th-January???: Chinese University of Hong Kong Study Abroad

Background on the Internship:

Back before thanksgiving break I received a mass email from the Assistant Dean of Engineering requesting applications for a unique international internship with Rolls-Royce, where a student will have the opportunity to spend 12 weeks working outside of the United States.  For those of you who don’t know I interned for Rolls-Royce last summer in southern Virginia in a brand new Fan Disk manufacturing plant, so I figured I would fill out the application and throw my resume into the pool and see what would happen.  Before proceeding I want to mention that I will be receiving no free car/discount on a car/test drive of a car, Rolls-Royce cars are produced by BMW and are a separate venture from the Rolls-Royce Jet/Ship/Nuclear that I will be interning with.

Of course I was told I would hear back after a week or two…. 6 weeks later, after thinking I had been passed over, I receive a call they want me to come in for an interview.  I guess I said something right because here I sit about to start work on Monday the 28^th.

Background on Euro Trip:

Blake and Me Summer '10

My good friend from home Blake Alexander and I had talked last summer about the possibility of doing a Euro Trip for summer 2012, when this internship came through plans started to become reality.  Right now the only things that have been 100% finalized are the starting location and date (Brussels, Belgium August 18th) and that I will end September 3rd, while he continues for another 2 weeks or so.

Right now our tentative cities are:

Brussels, Belgium
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Berlin, Germany
Prague, Czech Republic

Budapest, Hungary

Barcelona, Spain

Ibiza, Spain

It is quite a bit for 2 weeks so we may have to cut out a city or two... we will see. I will keep updates as they come.

                     
                                                                View EuroTrip 2012 in a larger map

Background on Study Abroad:

Coming into college with quite a few AP credits has allowed me to accelerate my studies so that I have completed my first 5 semesters in only two years. Virginia Tech stops offering required courses both semesters which has placed me with an opening for Fall of 2012 where if I stayed at tech I would have like one applicable course so last fall I decided that I would fill it with a "Life Broadening Experience".  This meant that I either wanted to find a Co-Op (Basically interning during the school year) or Study Abroad.  Since I will have already interned for two summers I chose the study abroad option but this is where the challenging decision came into play... choosing a location.  Because I would be in Europe this summer I wanted to go outside of Europe to either Australia or China... Australia's school start dates conflicted with my internship dates so China it was!  Within China Virginia Tech has exchange programs with multiple locations, but Hong Kong seemed the best because of the strong English and big city mix.

Chinese University of Hong Kong

I was put forth as the Virginia Tech exchange student with the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which means that its like a 99% chance that I will be going, but the official paper work does not come through until mid June.

First Post More to Come!!