I have just finished my second year as an Aero/Astro student. This summer, I travelled abroad to France to participate in the Astronautics Summer School put on by ISAE, which is a group of French engineering universities. It was a month-long course that covered four different modules: launchers, thermal regulation of satellites, remote sensing and project management for engineers. Some of these modules were more interesting than others! I really enjoyed learning about remote sensing and satellites, especially because we were learning in a military school. It was interesting to learn about the application of satellites from a French military perspective.
I had a fantastic month and was very sad to leave. The course was in four different cities in France: Paris, Poiters, Salon de Provonce and Toulouse. My favourite city was Toulouse. I thought it had a lot of things to do and a lot of character. Paris was also interesting as it was just before the Summer Olympics, so we could see all the preparation that went into that.
There were 17 other people on this course – one other European and the rest were American! I think I learnt more about the American culture than I did the French. The Americans were really interesting to talk to as their university system is so different to ours. They don’t specialise until their second or third year, which meant that, even though most of them were juniors (third years), I was academically at the same level and even ahead in certain aspects. They were also really unused to public transport, which I found amusing. I grew up in London and so am well used to navigating a metro system (even if my French is terrible!) but many of them had never been on a metro train before.
Overall, I had a really great time and would thoroughly recommend to anyone thinking of doing a summer abroad.