Intern Abroad

• Environmental Engineering M.Sc.
• Berkeley, California, United States of America
• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• January 2022 – August 2022

My stay abroad at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (California) was 8 months long, from January 2022 to August 2022. During this time, I was doing research for my master’s thesis (Process Engineering) and did not collect any CPs as a student at UC Berkeley.

Preparations:

I started contacting professors from UC Berkeley, asking for an opportunity to research on my master’s thesis without having a concrete topic. Through several emails and zoom meetings I was invited as a “visiting student researcher” at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the equivalent to the “Frauenhofer Institut” in Germany. I had to apply for a J1 Exchange Student Visa, which meant filling out many documents and a lot of planning. In total, this process (called Free Mover) took almost a year before I was able to fly to San Francisco International Airport to start my research beginning of January 2022.

Living:

I found a shared apartment via craigslist close to my work and close to the campus. Do not underestimate the costs of living in the Bay area. For my room in a normal sized apartment with three housemates and a garden I paid $950. Food is as well a big expense, for example, a loaf bread costs $9 compared to a German 3€ loaf. Expensive is as well eating out (Pizza $15 compared to 5€) or having drinks (Beer $10 compared to 3€). But the food scene in Berkeley/Oakland/San Francisco is very versatile and vibrant, which surprised me. This all-year-great weather leads to people being active and sociable no matter how expensive life is.

Culture:

Near Berkeley is Oakland, a larger city that has become very attractive to the middle class. In Oakland, you can witness the process of gentrification, which means that the wealthy young generation is taking over an entire neighborhood from the poorer population. Oakland has a vibrant, fascinating culture on one side and crime and poverty on the other. To the west of Berkeley is San Francisco, which can be reached in about 20 minutes by BART, the local subway (cost $5, use ClipperCard). Berkeley is rather a quiet

University town, whereas SF is a magnet for tourists. The best places in SF are the Golden Gate Park (in the center of the city), the Dolores Park (a very crowded park, full of locals), Chinatown and Ocean Beach, there are as well great bars and festivals all year round. North of SF you can go hiking along the coast (Marin County, Point Reyes). In the south is Stanford University with a beautiful campus (Palo Alto). Must-see are as well: Napa Valley and Sonoma County (the wine regions of CA, 1 hour car ride from Berkeley), Lake Tahoe, Yosemite National Park, and Big Sur (each 3 hours car ride from Berkeley).

Daily Life:

Since I was not an official student of the UC Berkeley, I was not able to create a membership for the on-campus gym. Instead, I got a membership at the YMCA gym in Downtown Berkeley, very close to my apartment. I spent the day in the lab working on my research, ate lunch there with colleagues, and then went to the gym. In the evenings, I often took walks to the Rose Garden in Berkeley, hiked around the Fire Trails, watched the sunset at the Berkeley Marina or on top of the Indian Rocks in Berkeley. When spending the weekend in Berkeley, I usually went to: University Ave (Downtown), Southside (the equivalent to the Ponte in Aachen, in South Berkeley), to Temescal (South Berkeley, on the edge to Oakland) and Solano Ave (on the edge to Albany). When I was writing for my thesis, I enjoyed going to the many libraries the campus has to offer (the best being DOE library) and cafes, like Strada, Blue Bottle, Berkeley Espresso and Yali’s. Other things I liked to do: Yoga at Ohlone Park, Sunday food at “Thai Temple” (Wat Mongkolratanaram from 10am-1pm), biking to Lake Temescal.

© Emna Aidi

Last Advice:

You will need at least half a year to plan such a research stay abroad. I created a one-page leaflet about my idea to work on my master’s thesis, listing my relevant coursework I took at the RWTH Aachen University and my interests in which I would like to work. I sent it to professors, who seemed to work on similar topics, and kept asking them to help me forward my email to others as well. Apply for scholarships since the research stay will be very expensive (Auslandsbafög, RWTH Research Ambassador, Promos DAAD, GIZ).

View: At the LBNL (located on a hill) overlooking the UC Berkeley campus and San Francisco with the Golden Gate Bridge.