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DAAD Undergraduate Profile: Fei Xu |
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Fei Xu was on the Undergraduate Scholarship from September through December 2006, working at the Max Planck Institute in Golm/Potsdam, doing research on the "Analysis of surface layers formed by nanoparticles at the water/air interface". He graduated from Concordia University in Montreal in Biochemistry.
Quite different from other DAAD scholars, I chose my own research project topic and got accepted by Dr. Reinhard Miller at the Department of Interfaces at the MPI. The project was on characterizing air/water interfacial behaviors of proteins and small surfactants. Since the MPI is not a teaching institution, I mostly spent my academic time in the labs and interacting with scientists from all over the world. Theoretically speaking all PhD students there (they don’t accept masters students, but you can always find a supervisor there for your thesis or other projects during your masters) are registered at University of Potsdam, which is just a 10-min-walk away. However, since most of studies are conducted at the institute and students don’t take classes at all, you rarely have to visit the university (although some campuses are quite beautiful).
I have to say it is a fantastic place to do research if you like science. There is no need to emphasize on the reputation and excellence of the MPI society, since many fundamental scientific discoveries were found there and many world-leading research projects in various fields are currently being conducted (yes, not limited to science). I was the only undergraduate student in the department, but most people were very approachable and supportive on my ideas, and I felt inspired every day by other people. There were lots of open-minded people as mentors and many state-of-the-art instruments for experiments. Different groups have their own style of inter-member communication, and our group meetings were always organized by people who wanted to call it, just a few days in advance. You could always get help from other research groups since the research is very inter-disciplinary. There were also monthly student seminars presented from students specialized in different areas, and they were excellent learning experience. The library was quite amazing as you could find pretty much all the scientific journals and textbooks you need for understanding the topic. Every week there were organised soccer and basketball games for members from all three MPIs on the same campus (other two being MPI for Molecular Plant Physiology, and MPI for Gravitational Physics). Jamming rock music with some research group leaders was certainly surprising and enjoyable :)
I lived in Potsdam, whose majority was located in the previous GDR area. It is the capital of the state of Brandenburg, and a suburb of Berlin (the southwest end of the C zone). I really enjoyed living there, although many of my friends lived in Berlin and it would have been quite a different experience living in that dynamic capital. Potsdam is rather a small city compared with the two cities I lived in the past: Montreal (~3 million people) and my hometown Nanjing (~5 million) in China, but it is a city full of trees, parks and lakes, as well as unique architectures. It was quite convenient for me to live in such a small city as everything was within 15-min by bike. I biked 30 min every day to the institute (which is in another town) and the pleasant route passed through the famous park of Sanssouci. There are lots of rivers in the surrounding area to do kayaking. There is also a movie-making centre Babelsberg at the east side of the city if you are interested in that industry. Berlin is about 20 min by train and from there you can travel to other parts of Germany or Europe. I don’t want to comment too much about Berlin since you HAVE to go there and explore it yourself. I had been visiting the museums there for the whole 4 months of my internship almost every week but still feel it was not enough.
The DAAD meeting was certainly a great experience. The trip was very well-organized. Not only did I visit the hometown of Beethoven with other DAAD scholars, but also it was great to meet with other students in different fields.
The only pity I had during my exchange was that I did not grasp the German language (well, it’s also a motivation to go back). I never had a chance to take an introductory class before I left Canada and due to my laziness the nature of scientific community, most of my colleagues spoke English with me daily and I only learned a bit German from talking with friends after work. I have to admit German is a beautiful language (certainly does not sound as tough as other people may have described to you, at least in my opinion), and it’s the language of philosophy, classical music and many other valuable products of human minds. Towards the end of my internship, the MPI offered a German class and I really loved it. The grammar is more complex than English for sure, but so as many other things in school. In general, I highly recommend taking a class before you go to Germany. That way you may appreciate the culture much more.
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