However, the advantages of my internship at GSK strongly outweigh the bad weather. As a student Biomedical Engineering it is a godsend to work at a gigantic R&D site in a leading pharmaceutical company. My project involves state of the art research on tuberculosis in a laboratory filled with the latest equipment. Pipetting robots, computers that photograph your experiments and so on.

In addition, it is very instructive to look around in a company with a revenue of thirty billion euros. Furthermore, you are exposed to the original British culture every day: ‘Are you takin’ the Mickey? I am sick as a parrot!’. These are colorful expressions to expand your academic vocabulary.

What surprised me the most is the realization that you find yourself on an island indeed. Even though I am not separated by a vast distance from Eindhoven, it is a completely different world. Due to the inflation for instance, you have to cut your budget by 30% and roundabouts still confuse me after three months of driving on the left side of the road.

Although they might be a bit stubborn over here, they do have a good sense for academic allure. The contrast with Eindhoven is huge when you walk through the impressive and ancient colleges of Cambridge. We are like newborns here in Eindhoven, with our 59 years!