EPFL

July 10th, 2009 Archana No comments

Greetings!

I’m coming to the end of my internship at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL). There are two things I’ll be talking about here - how one applies to the place and a wee bit of what I have been doing over the past 2.5 months (other than postponing this blog entry

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How to Apply:

EPFL and the IITs have some kind of an understanding and the internship program has been in place for many years now. Visit this page for details.

Ideally you should go through the websites of the professors in the field you are interested in and give your preferences in the application.

Sometimes profs float interns and students from the concerned departments are asked to send in their resumes for the position. With such a system for collaboration already in place, spamming the profs at EPFL is not a good idea at all.

But again, keep in mind the rules are not very rigid - so don’t be shy if you are a bit less than the CPI limit or are a Sophie.

Switzerland is an expensive place to live in and the stipend offered is enough to break even (hopefully) at the end I guess (I’m including traveling and so on); but taking some extra cash from home is not going to hurt.

What’s Been Keeping Me Busy:

I’ve been working in the Laboratory of Quantum Magnetism in the Institute of Condensed Matter Physics . At LQM I am involved in synthesis of model magnetic systems and doing different kinds of measurements on them. Though my work is intense on synthetic chemistry, I have had an opportunity to explore experimental physics. The results from these experiments are used to check the ideas the theoreticians cook up in their ivory towers and at the same time offer new material for them to think about - it’s a mutually enriching process. Well, what I’m doing is pure, basic science with no immediate applications in the real world; but from what I know, the little bit I contribute might just help the physicists understand high temperature superconductivity and such fancy stuff better. It is indeed a very nice feeling to be so close to nature

Having a good rapport with one’s professor and group mates, especially your supervisor (who might be a PhD student or Post doc), makes for a good internship. One big plus point here is that most groups are multi-national (no two people in my group are of the same nationality!) and English is the functional language . In Lausanne too English can get you around in most places.

Lausanne is indeed a nice place to intern in; the city has a most amazing shore with the Alps across Lake Geneva, fantastic infrastructure, lots of cultural things happening all the time and reasonably central for travelling around Europe.

Oh, did I tell you about the chemical spill in the physics departmetn at EPFL?

Things never getting boring here, or so it seems.

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Hmm..maybe not the most positive way to end the blog - but again look on the bright side - I’m alive and blogging after all that!