How MISTI shaped my global career to Germany

Riley Padovano '19 graduated with a double bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and the German language. Through MISTI, Riley has travelled to Germany three times while at MIT to do an internship, a Global Teaching Labs program, then studying abroad at ETH Zurich through the MISTI Germany program. 

WATCH: Riley Padovano '19 internship experience at TU Darmstadt

Amanda Soh: You can introduce yourself, your name, the major you were in back in MIT. What are some of the MISTI programs you did?

Riley Padovano: I'm Riley Padavano. I was in course 2 (Mechanical Engineering) and course 21 (Humanities), when I was at MIT for my bachelor's. I took part in MISTI Germany [internship] and Global Teaching Labs Germany.

Amanda Soh: What led you to do a MISTI?

Riley Padovano: I actually heard about MISTI before I even attended MIT. I had started taking German in high school, actually. When I had the opportunity to come to CPW [Campus Preview Weekend, I was talking to some of the German faculty at MIT, and they let me know that MISTI was an option. Since I already had multiple years of German language behind me, I would actually be able to do MISTI after my first year at MIT. 

From day one at MIT, it was a goal of mine to be able to do MISTI that first summer. I ended up doing two semesters of German to continue on my learning before heading there right after my freshman year.

Amanda Soh: Where are you now? What do you do?

Riley Padovano: Today, I'm living in Aachen, Germany, where I work as a senior consultant at FEV Consulting. We're part of a larger company called the FEV Group, which is a global engineering service provider. We're active in a bunch of different industries from automotive to energy, and even robotics. I studied in Aachen for my master's and then ended up deciding to stay, and I still live there today

Amanda Soh: Wow! So what led you to live in Germany after you graduated? 

Riley Padovano: I actually actively decided to pursue my master's in Germany because I thought it would give me better chances for getting a job in Germany afterwards. I understand that MIT is a worldwide name, and it's something that companies here also are aware of. But having that German university experience as well does give a little bit of an edge, so I attended RWTH Aachen—which is one of the leading engineering schools here in Germany.

I decided to stay in Germany for a few reasons. One is the work-life balance. I find that people in Germany really value their free time and getting out in nature—6-week vacation is pretty standard here compared to what you would have in the US. That's something that I was originally very excited about.

Also they way that people respect others’ time being offline. When you're offline, you're not reachable. You're probably in the mountains where you might not have service anyway. My husband and I love hiking, so we really love that we're situated right on the border in a forest area in Aachen, so we can hike to Belgium or the Netherlands on the weekend. All those types of things made it really attractive for us to stay

Amanda Soh: What drew you to the German language?

Riley Padovano: I actually started taking German on a whim in 9th grade. I had taken Spanish previously, and in my high school we had to take two years of a language as a minimum, and I didn't want to continue taking Spanish for a variety of reasons, and my friends had recommended the German teacher at my high school.

So I figured I'll give it a shot, see how it is. From day one, this German teacher was amazing. He spoke no word of English to us. We learned everything simply by him drawing on the whiteboard, doing hand motions, miming to us, and it actually was three years before I heard him speak a word of English, even though he's American himself.

So that really got me hooked. I was seeing how quickly many of the German students were able to have full on conversations and feel comfortable speaking with native speakers compared to some of the other languages taught at my high school.  I ended up staying and taking German for four years instead of two. At the end of my junior year in high school, I actually did a 1-month exchange, where a high school student from Germany came and lived with my family, and then I went and lived with her family. After that it really became clear to me that I wanted to continue to pursue taking German language classes when I was at MIT.

Amanda Soh: How do you think MISTI played a role in where you are today?

Riley Padovano: I think that MISTI gave me the confidence to imagine what it would look like to live in Germany. During my GTL experience, I lived with the host family in Stuttgart, and got just kind of a sense of what it was like to live in a slightly bigger city in Germany. After I finished my studies I got my first taste of university life because I was working in the city of Darmstadt.

During my time in Darmstadt, I was able to already build some really cool friendships with some German friends who lived nearby, and I was only there for three months. This gave me the confidence that if I did decide to move back to Germany, or even somewhere else besides Darmstadt, I would have the tools that I need to be able to connect with the community there and really build something that would be supportive for me moving forward.

Amanda Soh: What were some of the things that you've learned at your MISTI experience during the summer internships that help you decide where you want to go in your career?

Riley Padovano: I think my MISTI experience really helped me to gain the confidence that I would be able to work in an environment where I would be needing to speak both German and English. From the first day, I was able to talk about very in-depth technical topics and have technical discussions with my mentor, who was a PhD student there. Even though at that point, having four years of German behind me, I still wasn't the most confident speaking. That's something that my teachers and professors at MIT really challenged me in - to be able to better my speaking in German. But during that MISTI experience, I really had to break out and just decide to try, even if I was unsure if I was going to be able to say something grammatically correctly. 

Now at my job, I'm constantly switching between both languages. I'm in the office in Germany speaking to my colleagues in German, sometimes we're doing projects with German customers, and my entire project day is in German. Other times the customers are English-speaking, and I'll go from one meeting in English to another meeting in German, and that's definitely a learned skill. Even when I started my job after my master's, my brain was all over the place, having to switch languages back and forth.

That skill was first exercised during my MISTI experience—going from speaking German at my research internship then at night, talking with other friends or my family in English. I would say that would be one of the main things that helped me in my job today.

Amanda Soh: What were some of your most memorable experiences, professionally and personally, during all of your MISTI experiences?

Riley Padovano: From my MISTI internship experience, I was in charge of building a data logger system that was going to interface with a sort of spring damper suspension system test platform for cars. In those three months, I was actually able to completely finish the prototype of the system.

I went from a total concept of needing to develop the code and the hardware from scratch to delivering an enclosed box system that had a Raspberry Pi and all of the different wiring and sensors that I needed, as well as developing a user manual for that prototype that I developed. I was really proud of that. It was something that I don't think any of us really expected could be achieved in three months, so that definitely showed me that learning something from scratch can achieve real results in short times. At that point. I didn't have much python coding experience going into the MISTI internship. I was able to really develop that during the time. On a technical and professional side, that would be what I got the most out of in my MISTI experience. 

I also had a lot of really great travel experiences. Even though we were in Darmstadt, I had the lovely experience of doing overnight Flixbus trips for eight to 12 hours, a few weekends with friends. We would get on at like one or two in the morning and take the bus through the night to Munich or to Berlin, do a weekend there, and then take the bus back 10 to 12 hours. Little bit on the budget side rather than taking the train, but definitely got some fun memories out of that.

Amanda Soh: Why should someone gift to MISTI?

Riley Padovano: Someone should gift to MISTI because the students who then get to take advantage of the program are given the opportunity to go abroad, where maybe they've never had that opportunity before, and it introduces them to international opportunities and gives them the ability to say that they've already had the experience of working abroad before they've even finished their bachelor's or master's studies.

Amanda Soh: Why should MIT students do a MISTI?

Riley Padovano: I know that sometimes it can feel like it's difficult to ask the question: ‘Why should I leave MIT and go somewhere else? We're at maybe the best school in the world, and it seems like maybe the best opportunities are staying in our MIT Bubble.’

When we break out of that bubble and take advantage of programs like MISTI, that allow us to go abroad, we're able to broaden our cultural and personal horizons. We're able to grow in resilience through experiencing culture shock in a variety of different ways. You get to explore new cultures, opportunities that maybe you wouldn't have even been aware of if you had stayed in the United States—even though it's different and sometimes difficult, and maybe it doesn't work out exactly the way you thought when you started to look for a MISTI experience.

You're able to then say—compared to other MIT students and also other students at large in the United States—that you've worked abroad, that you have experience working potentially in another language. Companies that are positioned globally, based in the US or based abroad, will find that really attractive and other students might not be able to bring those capabilities with them.

Amanda Soh: What's one word to describe your MISTI experience?

Riley Padovano: If I were to describe my MISTI experience in one word, I would say it was transformative.

Support MIT students in expanding their worldview and cultural competency at misti.mit.edu/mit24 on March 14, 2025, Thursday during the MIT 24-Hour Challenge!