Łódź is a fairly large city located in central Poland, not far from the capital, Warsaw. Like much of Poland, the surrounding area is mostly flat.

The touristic highlights of Lodz are the Piotrkowska street, where you can find a lot of restaurants and coffee shops; Manufaktura, which is a former industrial building transformed into a shopping mall; the Izrael Poznański Palace and several interesting churches. There are also nice parks in the city. Getting around the city is pretty easy using public transportation, there is also a lot of stations with shared bikes. The city is adapted to cyclists with quite a lot of cycling paths.

There are several interesting cities not so far from Lodz and easily accessible by train. I visited Warsaw and Krakow but unfortunately didn’t manage to travel to the coast (Gdansk, Leba, Hel).

I did my internship at Lodz university of Technology, Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, Dept. of Numerical Methods in Materials Science.

My work involved segmentation of MRI scans, creating 3D models from the MRI scans, editing them and printing them on FDM printing machine. I worked on the same project with another intern, which was really nice because we could share ideas and help each other. We had two separate tasks, one focused on creating surgical guides for multiligament knee surgeries and the second one on evaluation of volume and position of meniscus in healthy and operated knee. We had an opportunity to discuss our work with orthopaedic surgeon, and we also could observe several knee surgeries performed by the surgeon. I have learned several new skills and gained insight into this field.

The o-form stated 1 000 PLN per month; in the end it was 1 303,24 PLN for six weeks. It was not completely sufficient to cover food and other everyday needs, e.g. lunch in the canteen at university campus costs 25 PLN.

There was no problem to communicate in English with our supervisor; however, we weren’t meeting in person very often, we usually communicated via email. But there were other interns living at the same dormitory, some of them also worked in the same building and I worked on my project with another intern. So there were plenty opportunities to talk with them in English. In the shops and restaurants, the personnel usually speak English only in more truistical areas as in Warsaw and Krakow, elsewhere it is not very common, but it was always possible to communicate somehow.

The accommodation was arranged by IAESTE in student dormitory. It was free, we only had to pay deposit of 1 000 PLN upon arriving (by bank transfer). The deposit was returned aprox. week and a half after leaving the dorms, it was around 300 CZK less than the amount I paid probably due to bank fees. The rooms were for two people, with shared showers, toilets, and kitchen on each floor. My room didn’t have a fridge, but everyone else had it in their rooms, so I was probably just unlucky.

I was picked up at bus station, accompanied to the dorms, and helped with the check in process, since the personnel at the dormitory doesn’t speak English. Then we were also accompanied when we were picking up our salary. There were several events organized by the IAESTE members including trip to Krakow, but I didn’t attend them.

As I mentioned before, there were other interns. And it was very pleasant to meet them and to share our everyday struggles with the internships and life in Poland.

There is a lot of parks with outdoor gyms all around the city. I visited a bouldering gym Volt several times, it is a nice place.

For lunch at the university campus, I can recommend a canteen in the chemistry building A27. It is not very cheap, but the food is good, and the portions are quite big. The most common local specialty you can get in the restaurants are pierogi (dumplings filled with various stuff), also soups as żurek, chłodnik or barszcz. Doughnuts (pączki) of many types of fillings or toppings are also popular (e.g. in Dobra Pączkarnia). From non-sweet pastries you should try zapienkanki or obwarzanek (mostly available in Krakow).

The same as in Czech Republic. However, there is no wifi at the dorms. Lot of people bought Polish SIM card with extensive amount of data, it was quite cheap.

It is written in the accommodation description provided by the local IAESTE, but there is no kitchenware or cattle at the dorms so you need yours. You also need your own toilet paper. It may also surprise you that the bigger shops are closed on Sunday, but there is Zabka (small store) just across the street from the dorms, which is a life saver.

Perhaps your passport. I considered taking only my ID card since I can travel with it across Europe. But I was asked for my passport several times, so it is probably safer to have it with you anyway.

The work was interesting for me I’ve learned several new things. It was great to meet and communicate with the other interns. And I also got the opportunity to travel and discover some other places in Poland.

It was without problem. I wasn’t overly excited by necessity of using WhatsApp as a mean of communication, but I was probably the only one having this issue.