Marie Reischke spent half a year in Tromsø, Norway, working on her project for her master thesis. Thanks to the support of the ERASMUS program and the Elite Network of Bavaria, she was able to work on an exciting project in the Ultrasound and Optics group at the Arctic University of Norway and experience everyday life above the Arctic Circle in winter and summer. The following is a report on her experience.
As an optical technology student, I was thrilled that I had the chance to design and fabricate a diffractive optical element for microscopy as my master project. I had the opportunity to gain hands on experience on optical component design, lithographic fabrication technologies, and work in a cleanroom environment. With regular meetings in the Ultrasound and Optics group and with my supervisor I could learn a lot on the topic and other fascinating research.
As I arrived in winter, I got to see the winter wonderland northern Norway becomes during this time and I was trying out skiing and snowshoe hiking. In summer there are great opportunities for hiking and cycling. The city of Tromsø is also a very social city with lots of students, which made it easy to get to know new people next to the very friendly and welcoming people of the research group. One of the strangest but most fascinating ex-periences living in northern Norway is that in winter there is almost no sunlight while in summer the sun doesn’t set at all, creating a unique seasonal life.
