Nuremberg, Germany (July 15, 2023) – The School & Sports Department of Nuremberg’s City Administration recently offered a unique internship to USAG Ansbach students. The City of Nuremberg wanted to refresh the German-American relationship this year by providing an excellent opportunity for US-Students to participate in a one-week educational and cultural internship in Nuremberg from 10 July until 14 July 2023. Eligible students explored the environment of a German city public facility administration while embedded with various teams at different school and sports facilities of the city of Nuremberg, which includes 151 schools with 36,000 students of all grades and 108 sports facilities to include the KIA Metropol Arena, a multifunctional indoor arena for all kinds of events and the workplace for one week for USAG Ansbach interns.
The students, Isaac, Kyle and Kylah learned many technical skills, gained real life work experience, had the opportunity to go up in a cherry picker, meet and greet a llama and alpaca and fix a school chalk board!
Mr. Michael Kaiser, Assistant Head of the School and Sports Department city of Nuremberg and Chief of Maintenance for all school and sports facilities of the city of Nuremberg, explains:
“The idea of this initiative is to introduce American students living here or spending the summer with their parents, who live in the area, to the German work environment. Our department has plentiful possibilities to do this. “Kaiser continues to explain: “The three American kids worked in the KIA Metropol Arena, assisting with set up and tear down of events, technical assistance during events and also labor duties at our sports fields and green houses.”
The students worked with senior mentors and got to know other interns and apprentices.
When asked about his experience, Isaac said: “The thing I like best about the program was the real work experience. They don’t really sugarcoat it that well so you actually get real work to do. You get an understanding of what kind of work is out there and get a feel of what you do or don’t want to do. They did a great job of explaining that.”
Kyla, another student also applauded the experience of different types of work. “They open your eyes. Like technician work, I had no interest in doing it but now that I have the experience, I actually like it. Kyla acknowledges that: “There are days that are boring, but you get a feel for that, that work is not always going to be fun.”
Asked about the most challenging aspect, the third Ansbach student, Kyle mentions: “the language barrier, but it also helped me with my German.”
All three students, when asked whether they would do it again, did not hesitate to say yes. Furthermore, as a result of the internship, one of them has already received a job offer to work as a technical assistant during events.
All Students were presented with two City of Nuremberg T Shirts. On the final day everybody gathered for a pizza lunch to highlight the wonderful work these students performed during the program and to recognize the outstanding efforts of the City of Nuremberg Team.
This initiative was a collaboration between the USAG Bavaria and USAG Ansbach School Liaison Officer, Ms Trude Moellmann, who developed a welcome letter and application, had the application vetted through Garrison legal and coordinated the marketing effort with garrison public affairs office. Ms. Moellmann was also on hand during the orientation. Mr. Kaiser's team of the city of Nuremberg selected the applicants. Instrumental in the success of this initiative was Mr. (Col ret.) Friedrich Geyer’s persistent support and determination to realize this program.
The U.S. Army Garrison Ansbach military community is located in the Franconian region of Bavaria and is spread across six sites and nine kasernes dispersed around the city of Ansbach and the village of Illesheim. Today, Ansbach is home to the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade, the community's largest tenant unit, as well as the 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment. The garrison takes pride in its support to more than 8,000 Soldiers, civilians and family members working and living in the Ansbach area.
For more news from U.S. Army Garrison Ansbach, visit
https://www.army.mil/FranconianNews or
https://www.facebook.com/usagansbachcommunity/.
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