Michalis Lazarou (Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering), NUS Summer 2015

The 8 weeks that I spent in the National University of Singapore (NUS) could be rated as the most interesting experience I’ve had in my University life up to now, both academically and socially wise. During this time, I worked in a small team of around 8 in a project that I found particularly stimulating. Also I managed to travel and explore some places of the mysterious parts of South East Asia such as Bali in Indonesia and Penang in Malaysia. But most importantly no experience can be great without meeting new friends and sharing experiences with them.

During the whole 8 weeks I have experienced some wonderful interactions both with my supervisor as well as with the rest of my team. My supervisor was very helpful by introducing me to the team and ensuring me that I can talk to him whenever I need help or don’t understand something. Since he had to be away for some conferences during my 8 weeks we communicated through video calls or e-mails for updates on how the project is going and life in general which I found very helpful and kind. My interaction with the rest of the team was great, I loved working with everyone since we all worked hard to reach our goals and deadlines but also we didn’t forget to live and enjoy working in the lab. I ended up becoming good friends with a lot of the team members, especially my colleague that we worked on the same subarea of the project and we ended up travelling together to Malaysia and Indonesia. It was very encouraging to see that everyone takes their work very seriously but also make the most out of it by enjoying the atmosphere and everyone’s company around.

I was particularly impressed the first day I arrived at NUS main campus. It is by far the biggest university campuses I have encountered thus far. Also the way everything is so clean and organised is something that I should make a note of. Overall the IROP exchange experience was a great one. I got to see from a first-hand experience how the academia works and I got to work on a very stimulating subject that it was very technical but at the same time can have a big impact in the quality of life of people. Apart from the research related work I got to meet a lot of interesting people that I would have not met otherwise that helped me to immerse in the Singaporean lifestyle for the short time that I was there. I would highly recommend this programme to anyone thinking about it.

"I got to see from a first-hand experience how the academia works and I got to work on a very stimulating subject that it was very technical but at the same time can have a big impact in the quality of life of people"