Hallo! My name is Carlos, I am studying physics (now going into my 3rd year) and I recently completed the Frankfurt Digital Summer School. The school ran two-week long courses during August, and German lessons alongside. I took the course Path Integrals in Quantum Mechanics, with the optional German course. To be honest, I had a hard time deciding what course to take! That is because there were two other physics-related courses, Symmetries in Quantum Mechanics and Particle Physics and Superphysics and Supercomputers. The summer school also included a social programme, starting with a virtual tour of the city of Frankfurt, with social events such as Tea and Coffee break, and International cooking.

I already had a background in the German language, and because fewer people were taking the optional German lessons this year that it was in virtual format, I ended up practicing the language in a group with just me and someone who was more advanced, besides the teacher. It was a lovely experience and a great way to practice speaking. And I got to give a presentation in German, for which I talked about Karl Schwarzschild, who was born in Frankfurt.

The physics course was delivered by a professor from Goethe University, and my classmates were ~6 students from all over the world. To be honest, I am very happy with the physics course and feel I learnt a lot. Some of what I learned should appear next semester when I take PHYS3007, a lot will not. Certainly, there were some derivations that would at first seem obscure! Such as, just to give an example, deriving Ehrenfest’s theorem and the canonical commutation relation by using variational calculus. We even went from statistical mechanics to statistical field theory, in the last lecture. And of course, we also had daily homework. It was an intense but rewarding experience. Upon finishing, I received certificates and a transcript detailing the content of the 4 ECTS course.

Overall, I had a fantastic experience and absolutely recommend you try the Frankfurt summer school or any other summer course; hopefully you’ll have the chance to actually go abroad physically!

My Experience: Frankfurt Digital Summer School

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