When I heard about IAESTE I knew I had to apply for a traineeship.  I’ve always wanted such an experience; to experience work life in a different country, to meet new people and to integrate with different cultures. This traineeship gave me all these opportunities and much more.

Being that my traineeship was in Berlin, allowed me to see how much of the German, I had learnt in my secondary school, I could recall.  As expected, I couldn’t really communicate fluently with the language and thankfully I didn’t need to as many people knew English very well, although it was fun to occasionally try to speak some of the German I knew with the other employees.

My job involved the study of trace gases, so most our work was out on the field taking measurements with special chambers to note the emissions from the crop (the main crop used being corn). If we weren’t working in the field we would work in the office to prepare our presentation that was given at the end of the traineeship in front of a number of employees. I feel that this job was great for me as it allowed me to experience a different type of fieldwork than what we do here in Malta including taking measurements overnight and also sometimes sleeping at the field to be able to take our first measurements before sunrise which I must say was a great experience.

I am very grateful that the institute I was working with was very international so not only did I get to work with a large number of other trainees from all around the world, I also got to meet other long-term employees from different countries. Throughout the two months I spent on my traineeship I became very close to the trainees that I was working with and I got the chance to travel to several different European countries together with them which was also made easy thanks to the IAESTE team. Thanks to these trainees I got to enjoy my adventure to the fullest because even when there were some ‘hiccups’ along the adventure, they managed to be there for me and managed to turn any negative into a great positive. I believe that this is the thing I will cherish the most out of this experience, the fact that not only did I get to have a great experience with great people during my two months but that I got to form lifelong friendships with these people from around the world.

I would like to thank IAESTE Malta and IAESTE Berlin for this amazing and unforgettable experience.