Intern Abroad

• Chemistry M.Sc.
• Spain, Tarragona
• Institut Català d’Investigació Química
• 10/2023 – 02/2024

1. Application/Finding an internship

Before I applied for the research internship I did not have a clear idea which place to go. During the course of the chemistry master in Aachen it is necessary to do two to three research internships and I knew that I wanted to do one of them abroad. So, I asked the supervisor of my bachelor thesis whether he can recommend me some places to go. He directed me to a professor at the ICIQ in Tarragona which is a non-university research institute, perhaps comparable to the Max-Planck institutes and the likes in Germany. From looking at the group’s website I found the chemistry interesting and so I sent an e-mail with an application to the professor at ICIQ. He replied that he would be happy to host me, so we filled the required paperwork for the Erasmus internship.

2. Accommodation & Living expenses

When dealing with the bureaucracy of the stay, a secretary of ICIQ offered me a studio apartment of ca. 20 sqm total to rent. Despite its small size it was outfitted with everything one needs, like an oven, stove, refrigerator and washing machine. The biggest drawback was that I did not have a real bed but slept on a sofa bed instead. Looking back now I should have looked for a flat myself to first meet people outside of work and second because it was quite expensive (650 € per month), thereby consuming almost the entire Erasmus scholarship. There are cheaper options in Tarragona even though it was located in part alta, which is the historic centrum of the city. Travelling to Tarragona from Germany by ‘green’ means is relatively easy. There is a direct Flixbus connection from Cologne to Barcelona, taking about 18 h. This has the advantage that one piece of luggage is already included and more can be bought for 5 € a piece. From Barcelona it is only a short train ride to reach Tarragona. As far as I know there are no student dormitories like in Germany in Spain or they exist to a much smaller extent. Moreover, it is more common to continue living with one’s parents while studying so there is not something like a student quarter in the city.
Living in the historic center of the city has the advantage of being close to the historic landmarks of Tarragona, the cafes and restaurants as well as many cultural events such as the carnival celebrations. On the flipside the ICIQ is located on the outskirts of the city. Because of this, the walking distance to work was almost half an hour each way. Apart from the cost of the studio, I would say the living expenses are quite similar to Germany. Groceries are roughly the same price, but I really enjoyed the Spanish vegetables quality. I recommend to get a Spanish SIM card as the services are much cheaper than in Germany. There was no WiFi in my flat but I got 100 GB of prepaid mobile data for 20 € a month so I just used my phone’s hotspot for accessing the internet from other devices. If one has a Spanish bank account and is therefore eligible to get a plan it can be even cheaper.
However, I spent more money per month than I usually do because I went out much more. In my experience the culture in Spain is very different in that regard to Germany. I rarely met up with people at one’s home as you would do in Germany. Instead we went to the many, always well filled cafes and restaurants, for example to have some olives and vermouth in the afternoon. I spend a lot of time with my colleagues who were very welcoming and generally super nice people.

3. Everyday life/The internship

On a typical day I would wake up at around 8 am, have breakfast and then walk to the institute, so I would arrive around 9 am, if there were no meetings with the group or presentations scheduled earlier. We had one weekly group meeting in which several members of the group had to present their recent work which was then discussed among the group. Moreover, further regular group activities included literature, in which someone from the group presents a recent paper and subsequently leads the discussion in the group, topic, a more extensive version of literature where the basics of the specific niche are also explained and problem session. In this activity a member of the group prepares a total synthesis, removes some of the information like the products and/or conditions of the individual reactions and the group then has to figure out the synthesis and the mechanisms of the separate steps. I think most of these activities are pretty standard in academic groups in chemistry.
Apart from this we had subgroup meetings every three weeks to discuss our results and what needs to be done in the future more personally with the professor. The majority of my time in the institute I spent doing chemistry and trying to make the things work we talked about in subgroup meetings. In general, I had a lot of freedom after being put on one of the group’s project in the beginning in regard to which things I wanted to achieve and the methods used to get there within this project, which I really liked. I always felt like my opinion was valued and respected and there was a great sense of equality within the group. I never had the feeling that some of the PhD students or Post-Docs looked down on me or automatically valued my opinion less because I am a master student, which in my experience cannot be taken for granted.
The same applies to the use of the group’s and institute’s equipment. Everyone had the same rights in the access to it. Both the group and institute have great equipment. For example, the supply with glass-ware and technical equipment like GCs, LC-MS, GC-MS, glove-boxes etc. in the group is excellent. The institute shares more equipment like several NMR machines, which almost always made for very quick measurement times. Also, the institute hosts a whole analytics department, where one can submit among others HRMS and X-ray samples. In addition, there is a HPLC unit which can separate small quantities of sample for you. The digital equipment is very modern as well. There is a well-working chemical inventory for the single work groups and the institute as a whole. Everyone uses a digital lab journal to track their experiments, making it very easy to share results and procedures with colleagues. Though, because I am a master student, I was not provided with a PC at work and had to bring my own laptop every day.
Since there were many people in my group, I had to share my fume hood for the last one and a half months of my stay. Because the fume hoods are big this was not too much of an issue. The laboratories are quite large, in my group there were seven to ten people in one lab. Unfortunately, the ICIQ currently does not have canteen. There is one at the nearby campus of the university URV but it is not comparable to the mensa in Aachen. Prices are generally much higher (comparable to the prices for external people in mensa) and most days there are little to no vegetarian options. Because of this almost everyone brings their own food to work every day, so I had my lunch in the break room with my colleagues most days.
Most days I stayed in the laboratory until between 6 to 8 pm. On weekdays the institute is opened from 7 am to 10 pm and Saturdays from 7 am to 5 pm while it is closed on Sundays. I only worked on Saturdays on exception and I want to highlight that I worked these relatively long hours because of my own choosing as I really liked the chemistry I was doing and wanted to make progress. Nobody put on any pressure on me to work as much as I did and when I wanted a few vacation days it never posed any problem. Same as with the exact contents of my research I enjoyed a lot of freedom in my working hours. If one wants to have a more time off during an internship it is definitely possible.
In the beginning of my stay I had to undergo a lot of safety instructions like written tests, a presentation and a walk through the institute. I was provided by the institute with two lab coats and safety glasses. About one month into my stay I got into a laboratory accident were a splash of DCM entered my eye. Luckily, my lab colleagues were quick to aid me and washed my eye first with a special solution intended for these purposes and then water. They also alarmed the institution’s security department. A worker of this department then continued to wash my eye with salt water before taking me and a Spanish-speaking coworker to the hospital, where an ophthalmologist checked my eye for lasting damage. Luckily, there was no such damage and I was prescribed antibacterial eye drops. Nevertheless, my eye got infected because of the irritation caused by the DCM and I had to go to the hospital two more times during the next week. In the end it healed perfectly fine and I have no damage in my eye. The insurance of the institute handled everything with the hospital great so it was not stressful for me in that regard and I am very grateful to the lab mates and ICIQ employees who helped me.
The language of my stay was English as my group was very international, with only about 25 % of the group members being Spanish. Therefore, all communication within the group was in English. I do not know whether my language skills got better during the stay as I like to think that I was quite proficient before. Before the internship I also studied Spanish in university for a semester and longer in private. Unfortunately, I do not believe that it got much better during the stay. First of all, as discussed before I did not use it at work and second in my experience many people outside of work preferred to speak Catalan instead of Spanish (which are two different languages) as Tarragona is located in Catalonia. When they noticed I did not speak Catalan many switched to English right away. This meant I spoke very little Spanish during my stay.
Possibly because of the group’s internationality many group members do not know too many folks outside of work in the city, so we spend a lot of time outside of work together. Big cultural events like Christmas were also celebrated in the institute with the Catalan traditions or within the group. For example, we went to a fire place to do Calçotada with the group. In this tradition spring onions are burned in a fire. The outer layers are removed and the spring onion is eaten whole with a special sauce. I much appreciate that I got to experience these traditions.

4. Free time/Tips

A great way to spend part of the weekend is to support the local football club Gimnàstic de Tarragona (often abbreviated to Nàstic) in their fight for promotion to the second Spanish league. Usually about 5.000 to 10.000 people visit their games, creating a vibrant atmosphere, even though it cannot quite compete with Alemannia Aachen ;). Tarragona used to be an important roman city (named Tarraco), as it was their first permanent settlement on the Iberian Peninsula. Since the city’s population remained smaller than at its peak height in roman times until well into the 19th century a lot of the roman architecture is still standing today. The amphitheater located directly at the beach for example is part of the UNESCO world heritage. It is among six attractions from antique times and the middle ages which can be visited with a bundled pass for 15 €, an investment that is well worth its money. The surroundings of Tarragona also feature nice nature and hiking paths to explore it. For example, I once hiked to the roman aqueduct which is located 4 km outside of the city and its impressive to imagine that it has stood there for 2.000 years.
If you like climbing there is also a famous rock climbing area outside of the nearby city of Reus. Reus and Tarragona have kind of a rivalry going on as they are by far the biggest cities in the area. Reus can be reached by a regular bus service from Tarragona in about 30 minutes. I often went there as there unfortunately is no climbing gym in Tarragona but there is an excellent one in Reus I can recommend. Apart from this the city of Reus is surely worth a visit on its own. In the Christmas time there are nice markets where once can buy artisanal foods or typical Christmas accessories of the region like a Caga tió or the Caganers. Most smaller cities around Tarragona can also be reached by bus services. In addition, Barcelona is connected by rail to Tarragona. The ride takes 1 h 15 min to 1 h 45 min, depending on the train, allowing for many weekend trips. Supporting this is a current promotion of the Catalan railways in which one can buy an indefinite use ticket for four months for a specific route for only 20 €. If within this timespan one uses it at least 16 times, you even get the 20 € back! Tarragona possesses a separate high-speed train station on the route Barcelona-Madrid as well. This station is located 8 km outside the city, so it is connected to the city center by bus. From there, travelling to Madrid takes only two hours and connects to the whole Spanish high-speed rail grid.
Furthermore, Tarragona is located on the Mediterranean Sea and has some beautiful sand beaches alternating with small cliffs, so I often enjoyed taking evening walks along the coastline. Up until the middle of November the water was also still warm enough for me to enjoy swimming in the sea. Many people possess beach volleyball sets, so during the summer the beach is filled with beach volleyball courts. Obviously during the winter, the weather is much better than in Germany. The temperature rarely dropped below 10 °C and sometimes exceeded 20 °C in February, enabling outdoor activities year-round. Once a week I played football on a pitch belonging to a nearby school with a group of students and workers of the ICIQ and the nearby university URV.
Before I mentioned that I went out a lot for food and drinks. As a vegetarian I would say it is a little harder than in Germany when eating out. When going out for Tapas there are usually enough vegetarian options (at some places you might have to order every available one to get fed) but otherwise one can sometimes be somewhat restricted to only one to three dishes to choose from in total. In the worst case, almost every place offers Patatas Bravas, so one can reliably fall back on that. Vegan options however can be much direr, so you should check beforehand if there is something available for you. When cooking for myself though I found myself in paradise. The vegetable quality and variety available is amazing so vegetarian or vegan cooking is a blast.

5. Conclusion

Looking back, I had a great time in Tarragona. The people I met were super nice and welcoming. I hope that I have made some lasting friendships. Also, I experienced some Catalan culture, like carnival, the Christmas traditions or Calçotada. In and around Tarragona there are many cool options to spend one’s leisure time. Regarding the work I experienced a lot of freedoms and I found the chemistry I did super interesting. I also really liked the culture and atmosphere at ICIQ. Therefore, I can wholeheartedly recommend a stay in Tarragona and I will definitely come back either for vacation or to work.