Jon Arizti Sanz (Department of Materials), MIT Summer 2017

The IROP at MIT was a wonderful experience, extremely enriching and stimulating academically, culturally and personally.

The lab was an extremely stimulating environment where scientists from completely different backgrounds could explain their suggestions/concepts and merge them to obtain novel and interesting ideas. Furthermore, I made really good friends and connections in the lab which will definitely be helpful in the future. I also made really good friends with the other exchange students from Oxford and Imperial. I was extremely lucky to get to know them better throughout these 8 weeks and I am sure the friendship will last very long.

This trip to the US was very interesting and mind-opening in a cultural and personal level. The US is substantially different to the countries I am used to (Spain and UK). Nevertheless, Americans are very open and friendly; which facilitated the immersion into this completely new culture. During the weekends, we also managed to save time to travel around Boston and visit several spots in New England. For instance, we rode to the White Mountains for the weekend. The hikes and the views were fantastic! Additionally, we also visited Cape Cod, a piece of land that looks like a peninsula located 2 hours away from Boston. Cape Cod was very beautiful and relaxing, we eat some great seafood and even managed to see seals!! Obviously, we also ticked off the bucket list the visit to New York. New York is definitely a must-do. We had a great time visiting every single possible spot in New York. Those trips were very interesting and fun! They were also great opportunities for bonding with the other exchange students from Imperial and Oxford.

Overall, the experience was fantastic and I could not have asked for a better lab or better people to live the experience with!

"The lab was an extremely stimulating environment where scientists from completely different backgrounds could explain their suggestions/concepts and merge them to obtain novel and interesting ideas"