Intern Review Aayush Khare University of Zagreb

Intern Experiences Summer 2018

PMF (Faculty of Science), University of Zagreb, Croatia

Aayush Khare

Process of securing the intern:

Apping. I mailed the professor after going through the work mentioned on the group's website.

What was I working on?

The group I was working with focuses on understanding the theoretical aspects of Microtubules, which are the most important component in the formation of the mitotic spindle that forms during cell division. They collaborate with an experimental group from the Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb. I was working on an ongoing project with one of the master's student in the group, on developing a theoretical model that tries to understand the various shapes of the microtubules observed experimentally in the mitotic spindle. The project holds important relevance in understanding the properties of the mitotic spindle and would possibly help in getting a better understanding behind the cell division process.

Workload:

The work was completely theoretical, basically doing mathematical calculations on a sheet of paper! Involved basic python programming to check the consistency of the theoretical model with the experimental results. Theories- Theory of elasticity, applied to rods; some understanding of the biological aspects(cell division, formation of mitotic spindle, BB101 ).

What did I learn during the internship?

I got a fairly good idea of how life doing research/PhD is, by interacting with a lot of students from different fields. It was also a great experience getting to know a country by discovering different places on my own and interacting with people. Living in a different country where things are quiet different from your own, actually gives a hands on experience on how to manage everything, which is really helpful when planning to do a MS/PhD abroad.
I had already done some work with my professor, remotely(reading papers and reproducing results) during the winter vacation. So I had a fair idea of what I would be working on for the project during the summers and also was looking forward to continue it as a BTP, as it was an interesting problem. The only thing is that I was there for 7 weeks, and it's a very short period to get to some interesting results. The possibility of working remotely after I returned wasn't that favorable, both for the Prof. and me, as having meetings on Skype isn't always a good idea, as they have group meetings involving the experimental group and the theoretical group. Still, it turned out to be a good learning experience.

Places I visited:

Explored most parts of Zagreb, participated in different meetups(got to do some live sketching that way:D ), which also gave the chance to meet and become friends with interesting people from different countries. Also traveled to 4 other cities nearby Zagreb, over the weekends.

Contact details: 

aayushkhare95@gmail.com.