My internship experience at RWTH Aachen (Germany)

I always wanted to go for an industrial internship and in the beginning, I was reluctant to go for a research internship. This is the usual case among Indian engineers. Most prefer industrial over research. But, I would say that I would never have gained such a great experience of work, culture, people, countries, food etc. in an amazingly short span of just 2 months had I not gone to Germany.

I am from NIT (MNIT) Jaipur. It was in August 2012 that I started my hunt for an international internship after being rejected by Adobe Systems (India) for an internship offer at my campus.

I had a CGPA sufficient enough to bag me a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service)funding for my internship at a German university. So, I started mailing professors at the German universities. Initially, I had no idea about whom to send the cover letter so I used to send it to each and every person at the departments of the universities :P.

After sending around 1500-1600 emails, I got replies from just 3 universities!! o.O Nevertheless, one was from the best university of Germany-RWTH Aachen and the project was also in C++ and related to trees. So, I selected that. For complete description of the project, you can check this link:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7QKxzwasN49ckgyZ2piaDdEcE0/edit?usp=sharing

So, I did all the usual stuff for getting the DAAD  scholarship-cover letters, recommendation letters, grade sheets bla bla to name a few. In January 2013, I was being declared selected for DAAD scholarship and I was on cloud nine. There you go!!

So, now let's start the actual internship story after I landed in Germany in May 2013.
First of all, again a very heartily thanks to the DAAD which provided me such a unique opportunity to visit Germany. Well, the only word which came to my mind as soon as I put my foot on the land of Aachen (that’s where I got to do my internship) was ‘awesome’.

Life is so streamlined there. Everything works on the exact time. Exact means exact! On Day 1, I could not get much time to click photos of the city I was staying in as I was busy opening bank account, buying bus passes and meeting my supervisor.

Oh, supervisor? Life is so informal there. Indian constitution has abolished all kinds of titles back in 1947 but are we really successful in doing so? No!! Here, you don’t need to call anyone ‘Sir’ no matter how senior or how older s/he is to you. Just call them by name. In India, we are so obsessed with the use of the word ‘Sir’ that it has lost its meaning. We even call a pizza boy ‘Sir’ (I don’t have any disrespect for him but it’s only about the use). I know some of would now point me out that we use ‘sir’ to show that we respect everyone. Well, let me tell you. Respect should be in heart, not in words. It should come from inside. Well, whatever it is let’s stop here!

My supervisor showed me my office. Office?? Yes, an office for an intern!! And it was fabulous. In India, even our job workers don’t have offices. They work in 8×8 cubicles. And interns are not valued in India. I can now understand why Germany stands way ahead in research. The facilities there were so awesome.
There were 8 researcher headed by one professor. Every university is autonomous in Germany and so is every professor. By autonomous, I mean that they can spend their funds without taking permissions from higher authorities or so.

So, let me take you to the inside of the city. Aachen is not a very big city but the name of university holds importance. Leaving aside the Dom (or the Church), Elisenbrunen and the Central Markt, there wasn’t much to see in Aachen. It was summers. So, it was 'somewhat' comfortable for a person hailing from a tropical country. The weather is so unpredictable there. It can rain in the next 5 minutes or it can be cold enough to make you put your jacket on or even the sun could shine!

There used to be heating everywhere whether it is my room, buses or trains-they don't care for energy, they just care for comfort. There’s pedestrian walking everywhere. You cannot cross a road arbitrarily as in India. If there’s no pedestrian walking on some roads, then foot walkers get a priority over cars. I mean if you step ahead to cross such a road and a car comes, then the car driver will wait for your crossing. Even if you move your step back, they’ll again ask you to cross road first. By the way, the cars keep a distance of 10 feet when they are queued-in on a traffic signal.

And, either the Germans run cars, or they have bicycles-they are less likely to use motorbikes and mopeds etc. unlike in India. The roads are so smooth.

I had some problems initially because I didn’t speak German. The Germans, especially the elder ones don’t understand English.

There were no local grocery stores like in India but supermarkets everywhere-just go in there and find everything you want.

My room’s location was very nice. It was in the heart of Aachen and most places could be reached via foot (except my office which was ~3 km). My office’s location was also great! There was a one of the biggest factory outlet of Lindt’s (a famous German chocolate company) outside my office.

Trains run so fast reaching as high as 300 kmph and still you won't get the feeling. They are fully packed and air conditioning is provided inside. Berlin can be reached from Aachen (800 km) in mere 5 hours.

People are so honest there; say for example if you lose your cell phone, you'll easily find it next day in some police station. There are no separate conductors in buses. The driver himself is the conductor and he/she (she? Yes, female drivers too) has a ticket machine on his/her right hand. He does not bother to inspect your ticket considering that you are 'honest' too :P . However, there are occasional checks in buses. So, beware!!

Okay, so with the stipend provided by DAAD I was able to do some savings and use that saved money to visit countries. Every weekend, I and my other MNIT friends used to finish touring one country. It was like count++ every weekend. So, my count was 6 at the end of the internship. In chronological order, I went to Prague, Amsterdam, Berlin, Rugen, Switzerland, Munich, Luxembourg and Paris.

A brief description of all the destinations I visited:

Prague-city of lights and history, Charles bridge, where 'Rockstar' was shot.

Amsterdam-city of fun, everything is legal there.

Berlin-historical city, went there for DAAD meeting of all the scholarship holders from India; delicious dinner organized by DAAD at an Indian restaurant ‘Amrit’ but was equally disappointed by the dinner organized by my own people-the Indian Embassy the very next day.

Rugen-beach in northern Germany

Swiss-I used to wonder why Swiss is called 'heaven on earth'. Having been to there cleared all my wonders :P! It was the most beautiful destination among all. We went to Mount Titlis, Lucerne, Rhein Falls and Berne. However, it was equally expensive too (six times as costly as Germany was). Also, we had a great Indian dinner for free at a gurudwara. Sikhs are really good people!

Munich-car museums (I went to just BMW's), Neuschwanstein castle (must visit- a castle that you can only expect in a fairy tale).

Luxembourg-richest economy of Europe, very clean, usual historical places, and it was the Duke's birthday when I had been there so there were celebrations all over the streets. Went there with my professor and his team as a part of retreat.

Paris-Disneyland is worth going if you have to choose between Paris city (museums) vs. Disneyland (outside Paris) and you’re in your youth (i.e. less than 26 years). In Paris city, we went only to Musee du Louvre (where Mona Lisa’s painting is kept) and Eifel Tower as we were already fed up of the historical sites in Germany itself.

We never used to book any accommodation on our weekend trips. Trains were the best places to sleep given you had Eurail passes. We usually used to board overnight trains on Fridays and planned trips in such a way that it would bring us back to work on Mondays even when all were in different cities.

I made a lot of friends in Germany. And there were seniors from my college too who made the entire process of my arrival and stay in Aachen very smooth. Thanks to all of them! I also ran 5,555 meters in Louseberg run. I ran into it without any practice whereas all my fellow co-workers had been practicing for three to four months and as expected, I came 1400th among 2000 people. It was a kind of "mini-marathon".

Food, travel and accommodation are too costly in Germany. But Quality of Life is just amazing. Water quality is too good. You can drink water from tap directly without having to install any purifier. Roads are cleaner than our houses :P. They are cleaned every morning. There are separate bins for waste disposal for organic, plastic and paper.

The only thing which I disliked about Europe was FOOD. Though, I am vegan but I can say that even the non-vegetarians would also find the spice-less food very boring. They consume most things in their actual forms e.g. they drink coffee without milk and sugar, they eat noodles without special "taste-makers" like the ones that come along with Maggi in India. There's NO MATCH for FOOD (at least for me) outside my home country. So, how did I manage my food there? Well, I carried a lot of readymade food stuff from India as I had baggage allowance totalling to 46 kgs. Plus, bread, butter, pizza, burgers, yogurt etc. there were sufficient enough for me to pass 2 months.

Overall, I can say that I would have regretted had I not gone to Germany.

CARS.CHOCOLATES.GERMAN ENGINEERING.TRAVELLING.PROJECT.AMAZING.LOVED THEM ALL.HAD ALL THE FUN.

What did I bring back to India? Chocolates, liquor, jackets, shoes, some stuff for family and of course, a vivid and rich experience together with some unforgettable moments.

PS: I've been placed in Amazon India. Will soon be writing my interview experience which you’ll be able to find at http://mohitajm.wordpress.com

Mohit Maheshwari

http://about.me/mohitajm