“Respected sir/ma’am,
My name is Reet Mhaske, an undergraduate student pursuing Engineering Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. I have been working on theoretically studying novel phenomenon in Open Quantum Systems and my interested in working in your group as a summer research intern”
That’s more or less how all my application emails (touching forty in number) began. These were what I thought about a year ago to be the most carefully written compact choice of words. As bad as I was then in my choice words, my writing skills have hardly improved. So prior apologies for the absence of inter-twined difficult-to-digest phrases and rich vocabulary, if you expected them at all. Nevertheless, my not-so-pro mails (I consciously avoid saying “my past work experience” here) managed to impress two brave German researchers, brave enough to hire an unknown Indian undergrad, under the DAAD scholarship. But the confirmation came only three months later. All days in between were full of uncertainty and despair (Excuse my exaggerations and also those that will follow).
DAAD internship applications can be extremely daunting. From the application emails, to the paper-work, everything takes a lot of your time, and it’s okay to feel frustrated. Here, I share my experience as a DAAD scholarship awardee, and as a research intern at Center for Quantum Dynamics, in the University of Heidelberg, recounting all the happenings of the internship period, if they at all serve to guide you in some way.
1. FINDING A PROF.
Mailing professors, as I described above, can be difficult. Showing your drafts to peers for feedback helps. But here’s what I feel is more important. Start mailing as soon as the beginning of the semester (and change your LDAP from numbers to letters first 😐 ) I started aping in mid-September , late, panicked and ended up shooting a frenzy of mails blindly as the DAAD deadline approached. At one point (about 10-12 days before the deadline), I had given up all hopes. It was a sheer stroke of luck that I got a positive reply at T-7 and I ended up submitting all the necessary documents exactly on the day before the deadline. (The first “yes” that I had received in September itself refused to do the large amount of paperwork required for the DAAD application in such a short time). So, start early!
2. CHOOSING A CITY:
Your experience in Germany will depend very much on the city you choose to work in. For me, and for a lot of others who visited the city, Heidelberg is the finest German city, in terms of safety, surroundings and the people around, besides the list of physics laureates the university boasts on its webpage about. If it’s going to be your first time away from home (as it was for me, who has hardly left Mumbai since birth), these might be important factors for you.
3. PAPERWORK!
DAAD paperwork is time-taking. Half of it is narrowing down on a research project whose details and time-plan need to be submitted (though no one adheres to them), the other half is coordinating with the German host about the documents he has to fill for you, in German. Plus, you need to post hardcopies of all documents to an office in Delhi. So be prepared for a lot of jugglery.
4. SELECTION
A practical fact remains that the final DAAD scholarship selection is done, not by researchers or scientists who value you research aptitude, but by DAAD officials who have no better criteria than your Cumulative Performance Index. Hence, be extremely thoughtful if you want to undertake the effort of the DAAD application. Also don’t be dejected if the worst happens, there is always some professor who needs your skill set. If you are unsure about your selection, have backups. Results are declared in January, and you do not want to waste your winter. You may want to take up an online internship with some foreign professor, who might be willing to sponsor you, in the winters.
Now, assuming that my pessimistic thoughts above have not discouraged you from reading further, if you are selected, congratulations! The war is only half won.
5. PAPERWORK AGAIN
This is the last round of paperwork. You need more documents to be signed by authorities here and by your host. Don’t hesitate from asking them to fill a plethora of documents, they probably understand, and that’s the German way of doing things. Finally, as you prepare for take-off, you are on a hot search for accommodation, if your university doesn’t provide shelter, you better start looking in January (As late as all things have been for me, my housing was confirmed the day my flight took off). The Visa is more or less conveniently arranged by the DAAD officials. And now you can work in peace in Germany.
Let me describe Germany the way I saw it. My seniors described DAAD (read Europe) to be the best place for internship and they degraded Canada (aka MITACS). I blamed this on their incompetence to be selected in MITACS. I was wrong. The German summers are unparalleled. “Skies paint a new tale each day, and winds carry songs of birds” (If you feel this is exaggeration, cross-check with another DAAD intern)
Academically, the people there have a more laid-back attitude. As for my research group in Heidelberg, headed by Professor Matthias Weidemuller, there were no fixed timings, one could work on what one wanted to, and as long as one wanted to (though trams shut at night). The campus was not as vibrant as ours here, though it was scenic, surrounded by hills on two sides. I was supposed to study “Relaxation in spin-spiral states in Rydberg atoms” experimentally there. Essentially, Rydberg atoms are atoms of alkali elements, say rubidium, excited to so large principle quantum numbers that can be used to encode quantum bits (like classical 0 and 1 bits). Once you’ve prepared them in a state, due to collisions and other effects, they lose their state, as if “relaxing” back.
However, the instruments there did not support my plan, and I had to change my problem statement to studying how to align Rydberg atoms into spiral states, via simulations. There, at the institute, I could meet people I otherwise could not. There was Jian-wei-Pan (google him!), Heike Reil and a dozen of other prominent people in the field. That will be the case for you, dear reader, anywhere you go in Germany.
Culturally, Germany was a shock. Besides people drinking and smoking at workplaces (common across Germany), all Fridays were practically half days. The entire town gathered by the riverside on weekends. In cities, most shops closed at 8 and remained shut on weekends. No one was in a hurry anywhere. On Sundays, you could not find a single soul on the street! This was in stark contrast with Mumbai (I still prefer Mumbai over Europe though). As for your plans to travel Europe, public transport is very cheap in Germany. Every German city has a river, that separates the Altstadt (the older parts of the town, as a rule, endowed with an old castle and an old church) from the Neustadt (the newer buildings). “Tourist centers” are essentially the castle and its surrounding buildings, in most cities, just a walk away from the university. And the best thing, you can cross borders on foot! The people there were kind and welcoming (and this opinion will vary with the city).
Enough of German glorification! Overall DAAD scholarship was a nice exposure to the German way of life. If you end up in German, do explore it as much as you can. If you don’t end up anywhere outside India, believe me it’s all the better. I think an undergraduate can work more efficiently in the comfort zone of his country, walking into the mess at will, rather than having to cook or bear German cuisine. At the end what will matter, and this line is passed down from a long ancestral chain, if you work and not the country.
All the best for your future self!
Regards,
Reet Mhaske.
