Pre-arrival information

Jorge Ghiano, Argentina
Department of Primary Industries Melbourne, 2009

I want to say thanks to IAESTE for giving me the possibility to do my traineeship in this beautiful country. The place where I’m working is the Department of Primary Industries in Knoxfield, Victoria. It’s a great place and I have made so many friends there in a short time! The work environment is excellent, and I have had the opportunity to visit Cairns on a work trip too.

I’m working in Agriculture research, in Biofumigation specifically. It’s very exciting work, and is a combination of lab and field work, applying all what I have learnt at university in Argentina.

Goran Niksic, Croatia
Department of Primary Industries Melbourne, 2007

Ever since I was a kid I wanted to visit Australia because the movies and TV series portrait this country as casual, fun and exotic. The internship I was offered would include the applications of techniques of molecular biology in improvement of agriculture and, as a molecular biology student with some experience in plant genetics, I thought that this would be an excellent opportunity to fulfil one of my childhood dreams and get some work experience at the same time.

And I got even more than I expected: I worked in several laboratories with the latest and hottest techniques and gained valuable experience in the fields of genomics and high-throughput analyses of biological samples. I also had enough time to explore Melbourne and the surrounding area, which really impressed me. The city is very colourful and fun, everyone can find something to please - the city centre and some hip suburbs - you could never be bored! Especially if you're into sports because Melbourne's sports events are numerous and a treat for sports fans.

People in Melbourne are very friendly and the most of the guys I hung out with (IAESTE social committee, co-workers, neighbours.) treated me as a friend and I really had some great times with them. Not to mention that meeting a lot of other IAESTE trainees gave me a chance to hear a lot of different points of view, senses of humour and to make friends from different countries.

Christoph Russ, Germany
CSIRO Brisbane, 2007

I got on my plane to Brisbane in July 2007. After some days of exploring the city I fall in love with this place. You should see this great mixture of cultures!

The internship at CSIRO makes me very excited as well. I am working within the "ICT E-Health Research Centre (EHRC)". As a student of Computational Visualistics from Germany I can do research and implementation work on different effects improving the visualization of the simulator my team is working on. Our work will hopefully be published in conference papers and journals in the field of computer graphics and surgical simulation.

You can meet great people here. There are a lot of students working in the EHRC - industrial trainees as well as PhD students. We have done a very nice trip to Fraser Island and spend a weekend there. If you ever come down under and want to experience something exciting - try this!

Thank you IAESTE, CSIRO and everyone for offering me the possibility to have a really great time here. I recommend this to everyone.

See you mate!
Chris

Claire McAtee, UK
Outotec Sydney, 2007

In June 2007 I arrived in Sydney for my 7 month IAESTE placement. The company I work for is Outotec and they are the world leaders in minerals processing thickener and flotation plants. I spend a lot of my time looking at and deciphering engineering drawing. The knowledge I have gained from doing this will be infinitely helpful when I get back to university. The other skill I have got to work on is team work and communication which are very important in all careers especially engineering.

Sydney has been a fantastic place to live so far and I've found the Australian people to be very welcoming.

I'd like to express my thanks to IAESTE Australia for all their help and support. This IAESTE placement has definitely been the best thing I've ever done and I would recommend the experience to anyone especially if it involves Australia!

Rafael Holt, UK
CSIRO Melbourne, 2006

Over the summer of 2006 I went on a three and a half month placement to work with CSIRO Molecular and Health Technologies' biomaterials group in Melbourne. As a chemistry student in England this was very valuable experience and I learned several new laboratory skills and techniques related to working with polymers for biological applications, which is precisely what my final research project would be about.

I found Melbourne to be a great city and it was easy to make friends with the many other IAESTE students there but also with other people working temporarily and students at the universities there. And it goes without mentioning that the Australian people are extremely warm, kind and helpful and they give the phrase "easy going" a whole new meaning. What really completed my experience was the variety of things to do around Melbourne - as a person keen on undisturbed nature, I found there are some wonderful places to go walking in within a few hours' drive, Wilsons Promontory being my favourite.

I would encourage anyone with the opportunity to go for a placement in Melbourne to go for it without hesitation!

Maja Loekkegaard, Denmark
CSIRO Brisbane, 2006

In my last year of the degree, my strong interest in robotics led me to undertake a number of non-mandatory courses in computer vision, neural networks and robotics.

When I applied for the position at CSIRO I took a bit of a chance. The job description consisted of just a few words, "robotics, under water navigation, sensors, vision". Since I am a long-time diver and my big interest is computer vision and robotics, these words couldn't have been better chosen.

I got in touch with my new boss at CSIRO, Matthew Dunbabin. He told me about the Starbug* submarine project that he wanted me to work on. Working on an autonomous submarine was an unreal thought to me. We have no such thing in Denmark and from my previous work on smallscale robotics I knew the amount of effort and skill it takes just to make a very simple robot do what you want it to. Working on Starbug was the best challenge I could imagine.

* Starbug is a miniature, fully autonomous submarine for reef research, developed in Autonomous Systems laboratory at CSIRO (pictured left). Starbug uses vision systems combined with real-time estimation of its direction and motion to navigate in under water reef environments.

The potential of this technology is becoming recognised with Starbug recently winning the Innovation Award at the Institute of Engineers Queensland Engineering Excellence Awards.

Abdullo Gafurov, Tajikistan
Deakin University, 2006

I am from Tajikistan and I began an internship at Deakin University, Warrnambool in September 2006. Currently I work at the University’s Aquaculture Facility where they breed Murray Cod (fish).

I am enjoying my placement, getting to know my colleagues better and exploring Warrnambool which is located along the Victorian coast. During my time I have been able to visit some splendid Victorian sites.

I express my thanks to IAESTE Australia and Tajikistan and I hope for a future exchange with Australia again.