Pete Bonzani

EUROTECH NEWSLETTER FALL 2003

How I became an International Engineer by Pete Bonzani

I had just finished up at Manchester Community College and started at the University of Connecticut in September of 1998. I started as a Chemical/Materials Engineering student and knew that I had three years of “core” courses ahead of me. I still needed the language requirement, so the question now was: What language? I thought “What would be useful as an Engineer?” One language that quickly came to mind was German. Why German, you might ask? Well, because many engineering-based firms are either German owned or have subsidiaries here. So, German it was!

After going through my first two weeks of a foreign language (even in high school I didn’t take one!), a visitor came to our class, Prof. Richard Long of the Civil Engineering department. “For you Eurotech students here is some information”, he said handing me a handbook of sorts. I asked him, “Excuse me, I don’t remember signing up for anything and what is Eurotech?” I would get my answer soon enough!
After learning what Eurotech was all about, I weighed my options. For one, engineering alone was a full-time chore. So why bother taking on more work? The answer was simple. Employers today look for what sets you apart from the next candidate. What better way to do this than taking on another degree! It shows that you can multitask and work towards multiple goals at once, which gives you an edge over the average graduate in a highly competitive job market like today’s, as well as the “bilingual” component so lacking in today’s college graduates that companies desire.
After working through the first year of both engineering and German courses, I was ready for summer. It so happens that every two years the Eurotech Program sets up a study trip to Germany. I thought, what a great way to start off a summer and see what Europe was like. The study trip was a two-week “sampling” of German Industry, culture, schools and beer. While a great experience in itself, it would prove only to be a taste of things to come…

After completing my Junior year (which all of you engineers know is real fun!), I decided that it would be a good idea to “lighten the load” for my senior year. I chose to attend the University of Rhode Island’s “Deutsche Sommerschule am Atlantik” in Kingston. This was a six week hyper-intensive course in which you could complete a whole year’s worth of classes! In my opinion, the DSSA was the best way to improve my language outside of being in Europe itself. Only German was spoken 24/7 and my language level jumped to a point were I finally began to be able to hold a conversation and even watch TV in German, and it was a real lot of fun too!
After a true engineer’s senior year (long sleepless nights doing homework in the lab and later at the bar), graduation came. I graduated in May of 2001 and was ready to go! But wait, aren’t I forgetting something? I seem to remember as part of the Eurotech program, students are required to do an internship in a German-speaking country… In April of 2001, just before graduation, I agreed to join Dr. Walter Fix and Dr. Wolfgang Clemens on the Integrated Plastic Circuits research group for Siemens AG in Erlangen, Germany. I departed in June for what would turn out to be one of the most enjoyable experiences in my life.

Arriving in Germany I did not know what to expect. What I found was a great country with lots of culture and fun things to do. My internship was phenomenal and extremely interesting. I expected the whole “make coffee and clean test tubes” and the reality was anything but! I worked on electrically conductive polymers and even developed a new insulator, for which I now have a joint EU-German patent! Not only the work, but my free time was remarkable, too. I visited over 20 cities in eight countries, with enough experiences to write a book on! The amount of culture, language practice, new friends made and work experience gained was staggering, not to mention the fun I had. It was without a doubt the best combined experience of my entire life. After coming home and settling in, I started to search the job market. I found a great position with a great company here in Connecticut. I am a research Engineer with Advanced Fuel Research of East Hartford, working closely with many high-tech firms such as Siemens- Westinghouse, NASA and United Technologies on high temperature thermal barrier coatings and FT-IR based measurements of materials. I believe very strongly that both the internship in a foreign country as well as my language competency greatly helped in the consideration to make me an offer.

So now here we are at the end, right? Wrong, this is only the beginning! For me, completing the Eurotech program opened many doors in the present and into the future and for you as a student in this program it can and will do the same. Even though it is a lot of work, in the end it is well worth it. Imagine what stories you will be able to tell…

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following groups and individuals without which this would not have been possible: Herr Franz Ploteny, the Eurotech, Chemical and Materials Engineering and German departments at UConn, Siemens AG, the Siemens IPC-Team, Advanced Fuel Research, the staff at URI at the Deutsche Sommerschule am Atlantik, Ruth Nentzel, Dr. Wolfgang Clemens, Dr. Walter Fix, Prof. Friedemann Weidauer, Prof. Richard Long, Prof. Robert Weiss, Carlos Franco, Edwin Obiri, Jongmin Ha, and my friends and family, especially Louis Tavano Sr. and Frank J. Bonzani Pete Bonzani and friends at the Oktoberfest