Masters Thesis Intern Review

I had a great time. The work I did was actually meaningful and will probably be integrated into the fab process eventually. Lots of other interns from all over Europe were there to meet/socialise/have lunch with.

My colleagues were great. Any question I had was answered promptly and in any level of detail (to the extent of their knowledge of course). I never felt like they thought I was a burden on them and they were genuinely interested in my project and the result.

I may be the exception here for internships in that I was only given guidance, when I asked for it. I was told the general idea of the physics behind what I should do and was then left to come up with a solution. I worked mostly independently. I only asked for/received guidance, when it came to integration into the existing infrastructure and when I had major decisions to make with no guaranteed outcome either way. I do have to say that I very much preferred the flexibility this gave me. It fit in well with the kind of work I did, i.e. R&D on novel error detection mechanisms and machines.

I was as busy as I chose my day to be. I set my own schedule completely. No extraneous meetings. All I really was given was the final deadline I needed to be finished by. Which I really set myself as well all things considered. Again, this goes hand in hand with the hands off, R&D intensive approach my manager used.

Given that I was the only one who knew anything about what my project was really about on an implementation level, a lot. I was responsible for the entire project. However, any failure of the project didn't really affect anyone besides myself. Still, I enjoyed truly owning that project.

I was expected to be very self-sufficient and consequently had to get familiar with whatever techniques and tools I chose to use. I learned a whole lot out of necessity. Whenever anything I needed to know intersected with the knowledge of the team, I got great support and training. As far as the usefulness of this internship is concerned, it was highly useful. I learned a whole lot about practical applications of machine learning and embedded systems.

Very relaxed and collegial. I was included in team socialising whenever it happened.

There is a clear process set up to introduce you to everything from where the cantine is to how to access the computer network. You're assigned another intern for any questions you might have that you would not want to ask your supervisor.

I got all kinds of training I needed to work in the labs and the cleanroom. If you need training, you'll probably get it.

Employed at another location with TI before leaving my internship.

Lots of other interns to meet at lunch. We had a regular group that met for outside activities from regular meetups to going to the Oktoberfest.

Not terribly expensive and not cheap either. Depends on if you live in Munich or in Freising

This gets a 5. 0 for Freising and 8 for the nearby Munich.

There's a large number of sports activities that are done by the TI Germany sports club