This past summer I had an internship of 6 months with SAP Labs France on the French Riviera (more specifically in Mougins, a city north of Cannes).

This was as part of a special internship program from my institute, where students are sent abroad for 6 months and can select from a long list of locations, I primarily chose this one because it was the only location which had topics on security. The physical location was a nice perk, and I wanted to go abroad again, even after my last venture left me with mixed feelings.

tldr: Try it now.

Of course, I am a big fan of the metric system, who isn’t? It is very satisfying to convert units easily into other units and see the relationships between units of very different realms, e.g. quantities from mechanics and electricity. With the SI system of units, all specially named derived units (like Volt, Pascal, Newton) are linear combinations of the seven base units without any additional factors. Then again, using factors is also very nice, because you can use the prefixes kilo, mega all the way to quetta (which was only added to the standard in 2022).

When studying, many people recommend to go abroad for a term or more. The EU’s Erasmus initiative makes this very easy, especially if the home university has agreed to partnerships with other universities. This made it possible for me to travel to Blekinge Tekniska Högskola for a term in 2021/22. Was it worth it?

What are the goals of a semester abroad? Learning a language and getting to know the culture? Participating in courses that are not available at home? Or just having fun?