Francesco kommt aus Italien und war über Experiencing Europe für zwei Wochen im Auslandspraktikum bei Continental in Regensburg.
First let me introduce myself: my name is Francesco, I am 23 y.o. Italian who is currently studying Business Administration and Law in Trento (Italy).
I am constantly looking for new experiences, especially if they force me to get out of my “comfort zone”. For this reason, I decided to go to Regensburg (Bavaria) to attend to a two weeks internship at the huge Continental local branch there located.
I left the city of Trento on November 10th in the company of Leonardo, another UniTN student, who applied for the same type project. In the evening, after a long train trip, I arrived to Saal an der Donau, where I finally met Laura, which would have been my host for the next 2 weeks. She drove me to Essing, a beautiful and peaceful small town near Saal, that in some way reminded me my home town in Italy, Revò.
The day after Laura drove me to Regensburg for my first day at Continental: I was very impressed by the sight of such a huge industrial complex, organized and filled with so many people, almost a “different city in the city of Regensburg”. For me it was overwhelming: in Trentino (my home region in Italy) there isn’t anything that doesn’t even come close to this huge dimension. Inside the facility I rejoined Leonardo (we splitted in Munich the day before), for a brief introductory meeting concerning our just started journey in Continental where I was informed about the four core values of the company: trust, freedom to act, passion to win, and, last but not least, for one another. These values are very important for Continental and they really influence the view people here work and relates with each other.
I was assigned to the Continental Idea Management office (most frequently called CIM), whose main task is to check and approve all the ideas of the employees concerning optimizations and improvements of the internal company processes. This office has a very important and delicate role in the company life and for this reason I am very grateful to the members of the office for the time they dedicated to me, for their patient and, most of all, for their precious teachings. I was flattered by the warmth and kindness with which I was received. So Dietmar, Tamara, Karin, Andrea, thank you so much for making me feel part of the team since the first day, it meant a lot for me!
Most of my free time has been occupied by the many activities planned by my host Laura and by the company itself which allowed me to discover Regensburg and Bavaria in general: cities, music, traditions, food, (very good) beer and, most of all, incredible people.
During these two weeks in Germany the time has flown: I couldn’t believe it when I found myself again at Saal station on November 23rd to return to Italy! This experience gave me the opportunity to observe a reality far from my own (both because of the distance from my country and because of the actual size of the company) which I really appreciated. I would therefore like to thank InCo Association, Continental’s human resources department (including interns), Laura, Leonardo, the CIM and whoever else has contributed to making this experience so beautiful and important for me.
In conclusion, I also want to write a few lines to warmly recommend this kind of experience to anyone who is curious and has a great desire to find out how big and full of opportunities the world is: you will find it hard to find something to complain about (maybe coffee)!