When the school brought us to the SGC for a visit, we had the opportunity to attend a sharing from the head of the department of DEinternational Trade Promotion and Representative of the State of Hessen of SGC, Ms. Melissa Brandner, who shared more about her job scope there, and also the various challenges she faced while working at the SGC. Her sharing allowed me to deepen my understanding of what SGC does as a whole. Not only are they responsible for maintaining a working relationship between Singapore and German firms but they also actively organise networking events for both Singapore and German companies, in hopes of sparking more chances of partnerships and collaborations between the two.

At the SGC, I had the honour to sit in for a talk by Mr. Joachim Ihrcke, the co-Chairman of the Plastics Recycling Association Singapore. He shared about how he was part of the making of Singapore's first recycling plant and I was immediately captivated by his works. He then went on to share his company's aims for the near future, one of which included the construction of a plastic recycling hub in Singapore. When he disclosed that Singapore had a recycling rate of only 4% while Germany had one of 98.5%, I was deeply embarrassed and felt that there was so much more that Singapore can improve on and learn from countries like Germany to better improve our recycling rates in order to truly live up to our name of being a green gar

On 22nd November, we had the chance to tour the Dachau Concentration Camp virtually in Germany with the help of our friendly tour guide Mr. Schega. Throughout the entire tour, I felt that the things that I have learned in history throughout secondary school came alive. In history lessons, I learned about Hitler and his tyrant ways, especially the things he did to people that did not fit into his ideal Aryan race, like throwing them into concentration camps or simply murdering them on the spot. However, it was only until this tour that those stories that I read in textbooks truly became experiences. I was not fully aware of how gruesome concentration camps actually were. I was deeply saddened when I learned some of them were even burned to their deaths or were killed in gas chambers.