Blog – Kenan K – Internship Programme of German Business

My name is Kenan Klepic, I come from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I was part of the latest generation of scholarship holders of the Internship Programme of German Business. I will keep my introduction quite short because, well, I spent the half of last year living alone in Germany, while working in a department specialized in space travel, while meeting new people and traveling with those people, while experiencing the joys and adventures of living abroad in a previously unknown culture. I would say that is more interesting than an introduction. 😉

Before I start writing from my current perspective, from a perspective of an alumni who has successfully finished his internship and returned to his home country after 192 days in Germany, I would like to share an excerpt of something that I wrote during my first week of this internship, during my 13th day in Germany.

“… I finished the first week of my internship, after finishing (the Programme’s) introductory week, after finishing the exam week at my university. in two weeks, I said “goodbye” to all the people I know and then said “hello” to double that amount of people. … in these two weeks, I have to make a list of all the thing I’ve done in these two weeks:

finished my exams

moved to another country,

met 60 (SIXTY!!) new people,

built a CANOE on some random lake in some random forest with some random people???

saw Berlin

said goodbye to the people from the Programme and moved to <3 Darmstadt <3

got sad because I somehow got attached to those people from the Programme,

started working and met TWENTYY new people (at the company teambuilding),

had to shot some random people (In a game of laser tag) in some random warehouse in some random town???

… I don’t know how I will be able to get through these six months, i don’t know if it was a good idea to come to Germany”

Well, it was a good idea to come to Germany, coming from a perspective from someone who got through those six months enjoying, traveling, hanging out, learning, experiencing.

Those “TWENTY” new people I met at my first company teambuilding, quickly became people I was excited to see and sad to leave. That’s something I realized during 171st day in Germany, during the companies second teambuilding event. I thought, at the first teambuilding: “how am I ever going to remember the names of all these people”, and now, now I know where they come from, which schools did they finished, what their favorite artists are. I learned that, and much more, while spending time in the company where I was doing my internship – GMV GmbH. All these people, my colleagues, helped me every day, mentored me, praised me and taught me more about programming, working in a team and being responsible. They are the people who gave me tours of two Space agencies and showed me real launch control rooms and told me real launch stories from those rooms. Also, they are the people who became my role models for my future career.

And, as for the “SIXTY” new people I met in my first week, well, they are the reason why my phone photo gallery is now “out of space”. The “random” people that helped me make the random canoe on a random lake, are the same people you can now see in the photos of this blog. We had a quite strange introduction, then a strangely amazing friendship, but in the end our goodbyes were heartfelt and hopeful that we will see each other again. And if all of the photos that I prepared for this story, don’t make it into the blog, which they won’t, just know that because of these six months, we now have pics from Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Amsterdam; pics from birthdays, parties and concerts; near lakes, up in the mountains, in buildings and churches seen in postcards; with bestie, with people from the same city, or all ten of us crammed in a small dorm room; photos from the 1st, up until the last day.

Regarding my city – Darmstadt, well you’ll just have to visit it, to see why I was happy to return “home” from every trip during my stay.

In the end, during my 192nd in Germany, my suitcases were overflowing, and I knew I could get to the airport without once using the “Maps” or “Translator” app. During that day, I read my diary excerpt from the paragraph above, and knew something was right, when I knew that I would do it all over again and that all of the lows and uncertainties, “flight or fight” situations were worth becoming the person I am after those six months.

Kenan Klepic, Generation 2024