After a joy of meeting and contributing to a week of network event in Freiberg last September, I, like any other ESRs in SULTAN spent an extra working period in the same city for no other than so-called secondment. This blogpost encapsulates my learning journey, typical daily work at the institute, and some other activities that I was fortunate to experience while being there. Without further intro, let’s dive in!
After a joy of meeting and contributing to a week of network event in Freiberg last September, I, like any other ESRs in SULTAN spent an extra working period in the same city for no other than so-called secondment. This blogpost encapsulates my learning journey, typical daily work at the institute, and some other activities that I was fortunate to experience while being there. Without further intro, let’s dive in!
Hold on, what is a secondment in the first place?
As described earlier, each ESR in SULTAN project has their own planned schedules for the secondment – thanks to our project’s strong collaboration and cross disciplines, every PhD student has the chance to taste a little bit of working/ studying experiences at the designated places. For instance, ESR 15 (myself) in his first year will have to gain supplementary knowledge in metallurgical process simulation and geostatistics in the course of the project. It will be subsequently followed by another secondment plan in the second year at KU Leuven, with another different topic and holistically complement his own core research domain in environmental engineering. In that way, ESRs in SULTAN project will have their research visions broadened and encompass multiple perspectives which will be beneficial for both the hosting institution and the home institution. These kinds of exchanges also strengthen institutions’ joint work – besides, what could go wrong by having more ideas from different angles?
So, what did I do and how was it?
As a quick illustration of what I did back then in my first stay was attending a summer school organized by TU Freiberg – HIF Freiberg for a little more than one week about metallurgical process simulation. Without touching into much greater details, basically, the objective is to simulate industrial processes (specific to minerals processing) through a proprietary software hence we can conveniently modify its operating conditions or parameters and optimize its results. I personally liked a lot the arrangement of the course, since we’re doing mostly ‘hands-on’ learning most of the time (in addition to self-learning and project work at the end of the course). For instance, a flipped class room where our professor gave us a freedom to build simulation, before coming to discussions at the end of the schedule. I still remember what he said to us “Dear students, you learn more from struggles”, which was hard to accept at that time but now it is more conceivable.
I almost skip a detailed explanation of my stay: on a daily basis, I was based at HIF office at the town’s heart (see Figure 1). One unique thing about Freiberg is that the landscape is transcended hilly, making a bike ride back and forth becomes a ‘natural’ sport activity one can do. Sometimes if the weather allows, it’s also a nice pastime to simply walk a bit away from the office towards Freiberg-Albertpark where the Germans are relaxing. For me, the quietness when walking through a little forest is something I will probably miss from Freiberg (see Figure 2).
After spending some weeks for a summer school and network wide event (check out another blogpost telling our experiences during this event), I feel ready to dive into the real secondment schedule. I tried my best to stay in touch with two supervisors on weekly basis, assuring that my work aligns well and getting necessary feedback from them. Additionally, I also got exposed to some tools for data analysis namely R with which I received some months before my arrival (in this case, the professor generously shared his lecture course in advance so I can prepare or at least to get the broad scope and purpose of such tool). All in all, the work was mostly independent with a lot of autonomy in designing research – one of the biggest advantages that I like a lot.
It looks like a well-organized activity…but a summary, please?
Summing up, some essences (what I did and what I wish I could’ve done during my stay) from my first secondment are:
- Prepare an exchange plan well before the actual visit. If possible, get some materials early enough so you wouldn’t waste time to grasp the basics. There’s nothing wrong with that though, but it will be more effective if the time is spent for discussing ideas and/ or preliminary results (also to crosscheck whether the method makes sense or not)
- Allocate some time to cross collaborate with the other PhD/ researchers over there who works on a similar or adjacent theme. In this way, both can benefit each other (learn new things) and potentially correct assumptions (improve current work)
Wait, the story is incomplete without leisure in town or adjacent cities
Gorgeous views and grand mountains easily fascinate me and coincidentally a colleague told me there’s this interesting place to visit. He was totally right – there’s a beautiful region (further south-east direction away from Dresden), where you can literally spend the entire day relaxing, jogging or sightseeing. Now that’s what we call a weekend well spent (see Figure 4). In fact that was already my last two weeks in Freiberg but it’s enough to recharge myself for several days left at the institute. I know I should’ve planned it way earlier but it’s absolutely worth your time also to discover new places during research stay, for me particularly nature-related ones!
Back to Zurich with laser-focused goals
A train bound for Zurich departed on Saturday morning from Freiberg. In one of the carriages, I was there simply getting myself prepared for a short presentation at my home institution that I signed up earlier even before the secondment began. The good thing was I arranged it properly thus allowing me to incorporate some takeaways from the secondment and discussions in Freiberg. Nice timing to share fresh ideas from abroad!
Updated link to download slides: here
Special gratitude to:
Renate, Markus, Raimon, Max, Rosie, Belsonia and other students who were there to answer my curiosities or to clear my confusions 🙂
All the supporting systems at HIF Freiberg and colleagues who have made my research stay in the city very comfortable. Your warm kindness truly made the secondment so pleasant!