[Rick Lee]

I did a similar program in college and it was just about the same as these students are complaining about, but I turned it into a great thing. Back then Bayer was called Mobay in the US and they sent me to work at their HQ in Germany. They lined up an apt. for me too. The apt. was grossly overpriced and far from the nearest train station, such that, even after a long bike ride at 4am, the very first train of the day still got me to work 20 min. late. And I was put in a factory filling up 20 kg. sacks of mothball crystals, which were then made into those urinal deodorants. There were no Germans on my crew except for the foreman. How cultural was that? I worked with Turks, Serbs, Kosovar Albanians and Egyptians. Broken German was the common language. I got to do some really awful, dangerous repair work in the factory too. I ditched that apt. (I suspect my landlord was former SS) after one month for living within walking distance of the train station. I bought a beater motorcycle to ride to work on the days I had early shift. And I saved a ton of money. Ok, it did pay pretty well, but then I volunteered for the bad stuff and wasn't working in a library or office setting. But even if it hadn't paid well, I'd have known that going in and the thought of protesting would have been laughable. I never heard from Mobay in Pittsburgh again and extended my work program and visa on my own for a few more mos. until the semester started. And they took me back over spring break too. I saved up enough money to cover most of my next year's living expenses back in the states. It was AWESOME. One of the best things I ever did.