Overseas practicum in Oxford at BMW

Christoph Purrer (5WIA 2002/2003), Michael Unterberger

After the approximately 100 minutes' flight by the Ryan Air machine I arrived safely in Stansted by London at June 25, 2002. The ticket for the following 3 hours' coach trip from the Stansted Airport to Oxford City Centre a nice man bought for me, which I had met in the previous flight. Without any idea, a rucksack, my luggage and a sheet with an address on it where I should go, some times later I stood nearly alone in the centre of Oxford. But in the end I reached my temporary target by a cab: my accommodation. My friendly landlord had waited for me and showed me his flat afterwards, which should be my home in the following five weeks.

But maybe it would be better if we went back some months, especially to January 2002. I knew that regularly people of our school working abroad. And so I met professor Pixner, who offered me and a colleague from the mechanical department two places at Jaguar in Coventry, England. I was always very interested in working abroad, because I wanted to improve my English knowledge and also I wanted to see something new. And so I wrote a curriculum vitae and an application for the job. But although Professor Pixner was quite sure that we would get the jobs for us, the months were passing without any promise. Appointments were fixed, E-Mails were sent, but we got no confirmation. And then in the middle of June the responsible people at Jaguar's cancelled our jobs.

As I thought that everything was over before it had really started, professor Pixner offered me and Michael Unterberger from the economy department another job at BMW in Oxford. The organisation was very exciting, which was not the blame of professor Pixner, but in the end everything went well. Without any doubt professor Pixner had a really big part on the good end, because without him it would have been impossible for us to get jobs abroad. He not only offered us the jobs, he also looked for a flat in Oxford (mainly due to Paula Evans at BMW) and he explained us how to open a Bank account in England (which is a really difficult affair as I realized in the following weeks). And so I want to thank professor Pixner for his good work.

The reason why I flew to Oxford alone was a little problem at BMW, and so Michael arrived one week later. I had to cook for my own, and so I improved my unexpected cookeries really constantly. The weather was not very fine (most of the time we had 18 degrees or below), but this was the only thing I did not like at Oxford. The city is very nice, because a lot of the houses are very old and look very beautiful.

My job at BMW was really great. The 2500 employee big factory was only 15 minutes by feet away from my accommodation. In the following five weeks we worked in the 65 employee big EK-5 department, in the last office building of the factory. Our task was to develop a Multi-User Access data base system. It includes task planning for each associate based on their skills and thereby optimises human resource estimation.

It was also very easy for me to talk to the employees, because the project leader and some other important people come from Germany and so most of the employees are used to speak very slowly and clearly. This reduced expected communication problems nearly to nothing. What I liked most on my job was the weekly team brief, which took place every Friday at 10 o'clock in the morning. Thereby we got gratis coffee, muffins and doughnuts.

Going out in Oxford is very expensive for an Austrian, because nearly everything costs 50 per cent more than in Austria. And we did not expect that most of the s close at half past eleven in the evening. And there were also a lot of clubs where you have to be over 21 years. The only positive thing was the Supermarket. It opens on Monday at eight o'clock in the morning and closes on Saturday at 22 o'clock in the evening.

In the 250000 inhabitants big Oxford there are a lot of old universities and also some other interessting views, but they gets boring at least after two weeks. And so we used our free time (above all the weekends) to go to the south coast of England or to visit the capital London.

I really enjoyed my time in Oxford. I have improved my knowledge in MS Access considerably and I also know now how it is to work in another country. I also met a lot of German-speaking people. Trainees of the BMW factory from Munich lived in my street. (Altogether there approximately 20 of these people lived in Oxford). I spent a lot of time with them in the „Prince of Wales" (a pub which is situated on the way from my flat to the BMW factory). I also met a student from Austria, whose house in Austria is only 10 km far away from my house in Austria.

With him I tried it three weeks fruitlessly to open a bank account in England. When I was back home I had only 17 Euros left, so I also want to say thank you to the International Young Worker's Exchange. (I got some financial supply from them).