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Ing. Jan Navrátil, Brno University of Technology,

ročník 5

Faculty

Faculty of Electrical Engineerinf and Communication

Field of study

Cybernetics, Control and Measurements

Field of internship

Electrical and Electronics Engineering

Specialization of Internship

Electrical and Electronics Engineering

Internship period (from - to)

01-SEP-24 - 28-FEB-25

Internship duration (weeks)

Transport (means, price)

Train - 260 CHF/monthly with GA under 25 y.o., 310 CHF when 25

Insurance/Insurance company

Sanitas

Visa/Work permit (yes/no)

Price of Visa

City of Internship

Switzerland, Villigen

Internship reference number

CH/2024-000016

About the country

Location of the place

Paul Scherrer Institute is locared close to Villigen which is a village with over 2000 residents. The institute itself is so big, that it is best well ridden on bike and you can use shared bikes for free if you are PSI Employee.
Close to PSI is Siggenthal-Würenligen where you can find bigger supermarket store.
20 minutes by bus you can visit Brugg which is a bigger city with other Student housings and universities

City

Watchout place above Villigen is nice. Then in Brugg there is roman amphiteather which is still used as such even though they are ruins these times.
Also quite famous Habsburg dynasty started on a small castle called Habsburg in the same named village close to Brugg.
Lenzburg is also reachable by ebike.

Surroundings (possible trips, ...)

Public transport system around Switzerland is overall very good so you can visit almost anything here. If you want to go each weekend and you stay for 6 months then I recommend monthly GA ticket which covers almost all public transport in Switzerland.
Must sees could be: Gornegratt, Pilatus, Rigi Kulm, Genevé, Montreux castle Chillon, salt mines de Bex, Lindt Chocolate Museum, Luzern...

Employer

PSI is a big research institute. I worked in the Photon Science detector Group which consisted of team of around 20 specialized people.

Work description

The work matched the description in o-form. I worked both in open space office with my assigned PC and in a lab. I mainly worked with Python and I was only tuning the wavegenerators.
I didn't need to know anything about the chip design and if I needed help, there was always someone I could ask for help.
There were times I finished my work so early, I ddin't have nothing left to do for the day.

Salary (sufficient for local conditions?)

Gross pay was 2300 CHF, with netto after deductions abou 2050 each month. It was sufficient enough to make it through month even with trips each weekend.

Language requirements

Our group was insisting on english speaking workspace even during meetings and lunch breaks. No other langugaes for the work were needed. Maybe at the grocery store in Brugg there were times, I had to comunicate in German. I even eventually learned some of it.

Accommodation (price, who provided it)

I lived in the PSI Guesthouse so I had it close to work, it was 650 CHF/month and cleaning service of the room was included. I was alone at the room. I didn't meet other IAESTE interns. Postal service was sometimes complicated, because online services cannot find the adress of PSI as residence adress. (In services like Ricardo)

Social life

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

Local IAESTE in Zürich helds weekly meetings at Thursdays. They also organize about once per month other events. There is also Whatsapp group for Hikes and Snow Sports where you can organize these activities with other interns around Switzerland

Meeting other foreign students

At the weeklys or yourslef. There were many other interns in Brugg. But not at work.

Sport and culture

I attended cultural events with other IAESTE memebrs. There is a sport's club directly at PSI.

Food, local specialties

I tried Rösti, Raclette, Gruyéres, Fondue and Chocolate. You definitely need to buy Swiss chocolate. Even the cheap ones are good.

Other information

Possibilites to communicate with the Czech Republic

I had problem with Guesthouse that has PSI work infrastructure that actually blocks all calling services like Whatsapp, Messenger or Discord. I had to use mobile network for these services.

Recommendations for students who will go to the same place

If you go for 6 months or longer and want to travel a lot around Switzerland I recommend getting GA Travelcard for Youth. It is 260 CHF/month and you can travel almost unlimitedly around the Switzerland.
If you want to save money on groceries I definitely recommend apps like TooGoodToGo. I was using it for 6 months and I saved around 850 CHF in money. Needles to say, you can also discover local foods in this way.