This C-DEBI Research Exchange was awarded for travel to the ECORD Summer School Course: Subduction Zone Processes hosted by MARUM in Bremen, Germany. This course offered many unique opportunities including networking with international scientists of various disciplines, learning shipboard operations, and improving grant writing abilities. This two-week course surveyed various types of subduction zone environments and included a wide variety of topics including geology, petrology, geochemistry, sedimentology, and microbiology. We participated in small group exercises that surveyed physical properties, core logging, rock geochemistry, downhole logging, core descriptions, thin sections, and temperature and heat flow. Each of these activities were mimicking onboard operations which allowed us to understand how sediment cores were processed on expeditions. This experience allowed me to make numerous contacts with future colleagues and collaborators while also receiving training for future expeditions. This course was relevant to C-DEBI Research Themes 2 (Activities, Communities, and Ecosystems) and 3 (Metabolism, Survival, and Adaptation) because we connected life with surrounding abiotic conditions including geochemistry, geology, petrology, and sedimentology.