My name is Paniz Shahlaee and I did my Master’s in Telecommunication Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. I was one of the ide3a scholarship holders for joint supervision between my home university and Technische Universität Berlin for three months from October 2021 to January 2022.
First of all, I should thank the ide3a team for giving me this opportunity to experience living in Germany for a period of time. My supervisor at TU Berlin was Dr. Lauritz Thamsen and my co-supervisor was Philipp Wiesner. With the help of Philipp, I was able to choose my thesis topic, and I remeined in contact and continue my work under their supervision. My thesis was about predicting operating time in solar-powered UAVs in 6G networks by using the LEAF simulator.
During my scholarship experience with TU Berlin, I developed my skills in programming. This scholarship helped me a lot to improve my skills. Although I found the experience to be challenging, I found it valuable as an opportunity to work in such a professional setting.
The ide3a coordinator team was very supportive and friendly before and after my arrival in Germany. They also organized a tour of the TU Berlin campus and provided helpful information about the city. Finding accommodation in Berlin, especially for the short term, was still not easy. It was not surprising though, as I had experienced the same problem in Milan before.
I had a great time in Germany. Berlin is full of sights and offers a multicultural environment. It is home to many people who were rejected from their own country.
You can find the pieces of World War history around the city like you are walking through a museum. In the first days of my stay, I started to visit attractions and I got confused with finding the routes and using public transportation, but after a couple of days I could manage it. For me, Berlin is an expensive city but the scholarship was sufficient to afford living a student life and enjoying the time. I also could visit some other cities nearby. Luckily, I mostly found locals willing to politely listen to my broken German (I started learning basic phrases), they helped me practice and learn, and others switched to English to converse. I appreciated both ways of communicating!
After Italy, living in Germany was my second experience abroad. The two countries are different in their culture and infrastructure. I can say that all these experiences have helped me broaden my horizons more than before.
