Most of our undergraduates go out of the University and spend a year doing a placement off campus. Almost all our MPhys students do this and a majority of our BSc students do this. During the year they are visited three times by an academic.

I started writing this in Barcelona, Spain, having just had dinner with a student of the Department’s. He is working at a lab called Leitat, which is just outside Barcelona. I finished writing it in Madrid – the wifi went down in the hotel in Barcelona.

The lab Leitat started off life a while ago researching into textiles. It is based, as I learnt on my first visit, in the heart of what was once the Spanish textile industry. Now it also conducts research on nanotechnology and into renewable energy. The energy research in particular interested our student, who is now working there. He is near the end of his year, and doing very well.

Of course, visiting Barcelona is no hardship for an academic. I popped up to a park on Montjuic yesterday afternoon, after sorting out some admin + emails in my hotel. The image at the top left is of Barcelona from Montjuic – very nice.

But the students who choose overseas placements also enjoy them. What is not to like? You are getting paid to live in a foreign country, doing interesting research. Maybe earning a new language, while taking advantage of the fact that the international language of science is English, so people in the lab you are working at, speak english.

It can be good for your career too, Vicki Hodges started working in the satellite industry during a placement in Germany while an undergraduate here, and has moved on to a soapbox on the banks of the Thames.