Wei Houzhen

As an exchange student, I spent five month in Paderborn university in Germany. How time flies! I had to say good bye to Germany. Thanks to Prof. Mertsching, Prof Yuan, Mr. Fischer, and Tobias. Thanks them for providing us with such a valuable opportunity. Thanks to Mr. Fischer, an excellent engineer, who helped me a lot both in my study and live in Paderborn. Thanks to Zhenbiao Zhou, Shuqi Wang and Fan Zhang who shared so much with me in Germany.

It is my pleasure to share my experiences with those who have interest in the exchange program. Meanwhile, it gives me the chance to look back to the wonderful life again.

Good Plan Good Result

A good plan is important and helpful for me to attend this exchange program. The following is my plan.

"Firstly, I expect an improvement in my research field. I am very interested in the embedded system research in GET lab of Paderborn. I will take part in some research work and apply my knowledge in GET lab's researches, which are about image processing and intelligent sensor technology. Secondly, I want to improve my English. As I know, Most of German people can speak English very well. And I want to practice my English in speaking and hearing. At Last, I what to learn more Germany culture. I am interested very much in Germany culture. Besides, Germany has a profound history in arts and literature. So, I believe I will benefit a lot from this program"

Looking back at my plan, I believe I had benefited a lot from it.

Study and Work in GetLab

I have taken part in two Projects in GetLab.

The first project is three degrees of freedom control system based on ARM. According to the control principle of Servos, the firmware and PC software are developed in Linux system. Contradiction between sensitivity and stability of Dual-axis tilt sensor is eliminated by using filter algorithm. The second project is USB and FPGA based infrared image acquisition system. According to the communication protocol of the image sensor, the FPGA firmware is developed by using ISE and VHDL language; USB Firmware and PC Software are developed with Eclipse and C language.

Thanks to Prof. Mertsching and Mr. Fischer for providing me the internship and give me so much help. I am interest in this two projects very much. By the help of Mr. Fischer I improved my programming skill and learnt how to use many useful tools and libraries. Further more I became familiar with Linux platform which I'd like to work with.

Learn Language and Culture in Everyday Life

You will find that one task you can work out easily at our hometown, but do not work again in Germany because there are many difference between Germany and our country. The culture, the language and the environment are all strange to you. So just keep in mind that you need prepare the language.

I took part in the three month afternoon German course because I would like to learn more about this useful language. Frankly speaking, to learn German well is really a tough job. But our German teacher is very patient with us. And at the end of the course I can manage myself in German for the daily life. To my point, German is a language worth to learn and we can learn it in everyday life.

German people are always very precise, which may explain the high technology level in Germany.

There are many difference in culture between the two country, which should be known before your arrival in Germany and continue to study after your arrival in Germany.

Eating, Drinking, Activities and Travels

Since the student dormitory supply kitchen for student, so I had the chance to cook together with my friends for our buddies and many of our new friends. I remember one time we cooked together with our buddies and my Chinese friends. I cooked Chinese food while our buddies cooked Germany food. After two hours hard working, we finished and shared these food together. That is teamwork!

The Germany people like beer very much. They drink beer in the Canteen, Lawn, Street and even everywhere. I drink a lot of different beer there, and I also like it.

Thanks a lot to Eurobiz, the international student union in the University of Paderborn. They organized many trips such as Aachen, Düsseldorf, Bonn, and Köln. Taking part in these traveling also gave me good chances to know more about history, development and culture of Germany. Meanwhile, they also held many parties for foreign students. Among these, welcome party and Farewell party were very interesting and significant for me. I'd like recommend you to join them.

I traveled to Amsterdam in Holland, Madrid in Spain and Venice in Italy with my friends during my stay in Germany. Every country has different styles. You know that Amsterdam is very open, Madrid is very hot, and Venice is beautiful. However, in my opinion, Germany is the neatest country.

In the end, I would like to say I love Germany very much. I love the people, the culture and the food there deeply. I will be a beautiful memory in my whole life!