As part of my internationalization experience, I went on a five-day trip to Linz, Austria. After a long and slightly painful bus ride, we finally arrived at our hotel, Sommerhaus, located in a student neighborhood outside the city. The area had affordable food spots and easy tram access to the center, which made exploring Linz quite simple. It was a good base to get a taste of Austrian student life and culture.
We visited the Ars Electronica Center, one of the most interesting stops of the trip. It’s a futuristic museum about technology, art, and society. We got a guided tour and saw a lot of impressive stuff — from the evolution of music, to a system that predicts the impact of things like rising migration on different parts of society. There were also demonstrations of 3D scanning and printing, even in flexible metals. At the end, we reflected on the full lifecycle of electronics — from natural resources to devices, and what happens when they’re discarded.
We went to the Hagenberg campus of the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria (FH OÖ). It was cool to see how international the place was — over 1,200 students from around the world. The campus was modern and well-equipped, and we got to see how they use up-to-date technology in their education. The visit gave me a good impression of how studying abroad might look and the kind of environment you can end up in.
On the last full day, we took a trip to Salzburg, with a quick stop in Gmunden first. The view over Traunsee lake in Gmunden was amazing — straight out of a travel brochure.
