Internship Feedback

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Ing Marta Čileková, Brno University of Technology,

ročník 5

Faculty

Chemistry

Field of study

Chemistry, technology and properties of materials

Field of internship

Biological and Biomedical Sciences

Specialization of Internship

Molecular Biochemistry

Internship period (from - to)

23.7.2018 - 14.8.2018

Internship duration (weeks)

Transport (means, price)

bus, 2 € per one ticket, 21€ /week,you can get student card but you have to ask for it in advance

Insurance/Insurance company

Generali

Visa/Work permit (yes/no)

Price of Visa

I had my personal Visa from Slovakia

City of Internship

Malta, Msida

Internship reference number

MT-2018-26

About the country

Location of the place

Msida is a very nice place to live if you don´t mind a bit "town-y" atmosphere. We lived next to the main street and everything was close. To university where I worked, it was 15 min by walk, 10 min to rocky beach, many small shops around. Nice atmosphere during fiesta (religion festival that is held by each church in Malta separately), you are right in the middle of the one. It is close to capital Valletta, only 40 min by walk and 15 by bus.

City

City ok to live, not far from Valletta, but not the one with nice architecture like Valletta od Mdina, but good point to travel as you are almost in the middle.

Surroundings (possible trips, ...)

You can go to visit Valletta, St. Julians, Sliema, Gzira all by the sea with nice restaurants, shops and summer holiday atmosphere, all close to Msida. I travelled everywhere, south to St.Peter´s Pool, west to Dingli cliff´s, north to Coral Lagoon and even to Gozo and Comino and a lot lot more. It is good place where to travel from, good busses connections.

Employer

University of Malta was the great employer, they were very willing to mediate more than just basic information to my work. One of my supervisor made an appointment with another department to present their work to me because I was interested.

Work description

I was working with my supervisor on her post doc. research about stem cells. I worked with HPLC and I did separation of proteins by gel electrophoresis, I also did cultivation of keratinocytes and fibroblasts.

Salary (sufficient for local conditions?)

If you are lucky and you have cheaper accommodation than I did, then yes. But depends how much do you want to travel.

Language requirements

everybody speaks english, but it could be a bit difficult if you are not fluent

Accommodation (price, who provided it)

I paid 400 euros/month in shared room for 4 people. Luckily we were just 2 in the room. But still, it was quite expensive. Accomodation was provided by IAESTE.

Social life

Meeting IAESTE members (pick-up at the airport, organized events...)

I appreciated that Bex from IAESTE took me from airport and showed me my accomodation so much. Very helpfull! There were couple of events organised from IAESTE like common beach trips, beer festival, food festival. But what I appreaciate the most is the fact we were meeting also out of those activities, just if you call someone out for beer, or to come to your place, usually there were more volunteers for that.

Meeting other foreign students

We were meeting often, either with IAESTE member on some events or outside or in our place.

Sport and culture

There is so hot you don´t really think about sport, haha :D. You can jogging late nigh in the city, or you can find a gym there. There is so much culture all the time! you can find everyday some even. Not for nothing is Valletta cultural city of 2018.

Food, local specialties

They have pastici, rabbit, some fish dishes, I also liked their bean spread and their goat cheese.

Other information

Possibilites to communicate with the Czech Republic

You can find some Czech people there, as everywhere there are some communities.

Recommendations for students who will go to the same place

Go for it and enjoy Malta as much as you can, travel to Comino and Gozo( especially if you are there in the spring, Gozo is green and beautiful). And dont forget to arrange your student bus card in advance, in summer season it takes 1-2 months to get your car after application so do it from home before you will come to Malta. Also be careful about car rental companies, they charge you a lot if you don´t have credit card. Don´t lend car from Golden Cars, they charge you more than you expect and they have super not nice staff around.

What not to forget with you

There is Lidl, you can buy almost whatever. I couldn´t find bryndza and poppy seed and smotana, but everything else is fine :D
Take your goggles and snorkel with you definitelly.

Benefits of the internship

Internship enriched me with new skills, and it all happened in beautiful Malta, where I met great people, lot of them right thanks to IAESTE.

Cooperation with IAESTE in the foreign country

Firstly I wasn´t satisfied because they started try to find me accomodation too late and they didn´t let me know about bus card in advance. but I appreciate help in the Malta, they were really nice and helpfull and since I met them it was all good. It was just thing they didn´t had enough people to take care about administrative at the start I guess.