The people here are so outgoing and so welcoming. We are all excited to be here and excited to see everything.
Books bored Lina Kury.
Not reading them — stacking them, pricing them, displaying them.
“I served an internship at a bookshop and I found out it really wasn’t for me,” said Kury, who grew up in Ebersgons, a village of about 800 people 30 miles north of Frankfurt, Germany.
Kury wanted to do something more hands-on, so she got an internship at an automotive shop and was hooked. “I love everything about cars and love learning everything about cars,” Kury said.
Kury was one of 11 students from a technical school in Germany visiting Milwaukee Area Technical College as part of a foreign exchange program that began nearly 20 years ago.
For eight days — from September 24 to October 1 — the students and two instructors from the Theodor-Litt-School (TLS) in Giessen, Germany, explored MATC campuses, toured classrooms, met faculty and students, engaged in workshops, discovered innovative technology, visited regional employers, and took in some Midwestern sights.
“The people here are so outgoing and so welcoming,” said Kury, who was visiting the United States for the first time. “We are all excited to be here and excited to see everything.”
The TLS students on this year’s trip are technical apprentices studying automation, electrical systems and mechanical processes, said Wibke Engelhardt, a TLS instructor who has made almost every trip to MATC since 2007.
The 2026 visit got off to a bumpy start when flight delays forced the students and their chaperones to spend about five hours in New York City before being routed to Milwaukee through Atlanta and Minneapolis, Engelhardt said.
Guided by Steve Herro and Cynthia Davy from MATC’s Transportation Servicing programs, the students started at the Oak Creek Campus, where they toured the computer numerical control machining and police science classrooms and the truck driving track. They toured Schunk Carbon Technology in Menomonee Falls, which manufactures products and parts for the small motor, power tool and medical industries.
On Wednesday, September 30, the students toured classrooms in the T Building used by the Electronics Engineering Technology program. Instructor Bernard Bannon explained the program and showed the students various robotics projects that MATC students work with.
The German students also found time for some fun. They visited the Bavarian Bierhaus in Glendale, shopped at the Milwaukee Public Market, toured the Harley-Davidson Museum, attended a football game at Oak Creek High School, visited Chicago and went to the Milwaukee Bucks Pro Shop at Fiserv Forum.
They also played several matches of pickleball at the Mequon Campus. “We had seen that the MATC president, Dr. (Anthony) Cruz, was a big fan,” Engelhardt said. “So we all tried it.”
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For many, however, the highlight of the trip was attending the Milwaukee Brewers baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals at American Family Field on Friday, September 25. The Brewers won 8-4.
“The game was kind of hard to follow, but the crowd was huge and they made so much noise,” Kury said. “The fireworks at the end of the game were great.”
With her love of cars, Kury also took great delight in touring the automotive classrooms at the Mequon Campus. “I was really interested in how they were doing alignments,” she said.
Kury said she will finish her studies at TLS in about a year and a half. Then she’ll decide whether to work for Audi or continue her education so she can teach automotive classes.
MATC students will get an opportunity to visit Giessen in June 2027.
The exchange program between the two schools was created after Engelhardt participated in a teacher exchange between Wisconsin and Hesse, a state in Germany. She became acquainted with several MATC instructors and a partnership was established. The COVID-19 pandemic canceled the trips scheduled in 2020 and 2021. The trips resumed in 2022.
“I believe there is a real value to being an exchange student,” Engelhardt said. “I was one when I was a student and my daughter was one. We keep doing this because it’s a great opportunity to learn and grow.”
Find out more about MATC’s International Education opportunities
About MATC: As Wisconsin’s largest technical college and one of the most diverse two-year institutions in the Midwest, Milwaukee Area Technical College is a key driver of southeastern Wisconsin’s economy and has provided innovative education in the region since 1912. More than 35,000 students per year attend the college’s four campuses and community-based sites or learn online. MATC offers affordable and accessible education and training opportunities that empower and transform lives in the community. The college offers more than 180 academic programs — many that prepare students for jobs immediately upon completion and others that provide transfer options leading to bachelor’s degrees with more than 45 four-year colleges and universities. Overwhelmingly, MATC graduates build careers and businesses in southeastern Wisconsin. The college is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.