Li Zhang

The studying and living in Germany about five months will be finished. Although the time is of short duration, it made me learn about too much, including studying, living and cultural of Germany, and gave much great impression.

Firstly, express my thanks to Bärbel Mertsching. She made me have opportunity to learn about the robot simulation. I haven’t known about the environment of robot simulation before I come to GET Lab. Programming in “GetBot” robot model and its sensor detecting distance made me learn a little how to use ODE in the environment of robot simulation. Although it is different from my research of PhD, I think it is very helpful for my teaching in University. Also thanks to Oliver Kutter and Alexander Simon gave me help in working.

Secondly, living in Germany is convenient for me. Because private house or student dormitory supply kitchen for student, I can make Chinese food by myself. Additional, when I lived in private house, rubbish separation in Germany gave me important impression. Organic waste, plastic garbage, paper and glass need to be put different bins to separate. Although it seems trouble for every person, I think it is very advantageous for rubbish recycling and environment protection.

Thirdly, student groups such as Eurobiz and AIESEC are very helpful for exchange students. They organized many trips such as Hamburg, Bonn, Berlin, Köln. Taking part in these traveling also gave me a good chance to know about history, development and cultural of Germany. Among these, Christmas International House and Cologne Carnival are very interesting and significant for me. Christmas International House is a peacemaking program that develops a better mutual understanding and friendships among foreign students and Germany families. It gave me an opportunity to visit a Germany home, and let me get to know how to celebrate Christmas Holiday in Germany family. It was my first time to celebrate Christmas Holiday significantly. I want to say thanks to my host family and student groups who helped to create such a wonderful program. Cologne Carnival is world-famous celebration. I found that the streets and trains were alive with many people in fancy-dress on their way to Köln. The Carnival had a big, official parade which lasted almost half a day. The celebration was a colorful and joyous. Certainly it was also my first time to spend a "crazy" day at 4, February, 2008, and was very interesting for me.

However, I think communicating with other people is a problem for me. Because I haven’t learn Germany language before I came to Germany, and my spoken English is also not good, it made me inconvenient to chat with German students and understand differences of living, studying and cultural. At last, I want to say my thanks to Angelika Brebeck who helped me in living, thank to Simone Derlich who taught me Germany language course very patiently and kindly. Also, thank to all others who helped me. When I go back to China, I will hope other Chinese students to participating in international exchange programs. I think it is very helpful for every Chinese student. And I am glad to provide any information that I have to help them get started.