インターンシップ

Internship Report (Otto)

当研究室でのインターンシップを終えたOttoさんから、レポートが届きました!12月から5月までの約5ヶ月間、お疲れ様でした。 We have received a report from Otto who has completed her internship in our lab! Thank you very much for your hard work over the five months from December to May.


Between cable salad and great noodles

I was very excited to join the Ohmori group for my internship, but at first I was also quite a bit frightened – having never left my home country of Switzerland for longer than a week or two.However, my worries vanished already on the first day when I received a very nice welcome and despite jet lag and a general confusion about my new surroundings was comfortable enough to go out for some great sushi with Robin and Jule. I would continue to enjoy the relaxed and fun atmosphere in the group during my whole stay – be it conversations during lunchtime, scientific discussions during the day or during an evening out in a local bar. During the weekends, I could often join the other members of the group to go for road trips around Japan and once we even found the time for a ski retreat during a national holiday. My first time encountering ramen instead of Schnipo in a ski resort made me very happy.

Since Okazaki is very centrally located in Japan, I was also able to visit many beautiful places and cool cities like Osaka, Tokyo or Kyoto by myself and make new friends along the way. I was especially happy to explore the surprisingly alive Reggae and Dub music scene in and around Nagoya. During my stay, we initiated the Nagoya-area psychedelic cumbia scene with the Ohmori group classical acoustics subgroup called Les Okazaimons de Oro, but further efforts are still required to establish Okazaki on the world stage. Bringing along instruments is definitely recommended.

On the personal front, I could develop a lot – make many new impressions and get to understand different cultures more deeply. On the science front, I also entered territory that was completely foreign to me. I was working with optics and on writing control software for the experimental setup.Neither of which I had any prior experience with, but I was guided really well through my project. My supervisors, Sylvain and Vincent, both showed great interest in what I was doing. They explained things to me very patiently when I was stuck, but also gladly let me experiment around by myself when I saw an avenue I wanted to pursue. This way I was able to learn quickly, such that towards the second half of my stay was able to work rather self-sufficient. The things I learnt in Okazaki turned out to be the steppingstone to the internship I am now pursuing at ETH Zurich.


For other Swiss people who might think they would miss raclette or fondue, I can assure you that if you search a bit, you should be able to find good cheese in Japan. The same holds for pizza. But very likely you wouldn’t miss either of them too much, as there is so enough great food to discover in Japan that no one should get bored. However, here are some of my recommendations, just in case:

(ItaRu Cheese Dining, Osaka)
(Voga Pizzeria, Uno)

Thus, between great food, great people and interesting science I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in Okazaki and would recommend everyone who’s curious to also join Ohmori group.

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