Joe Dey, a second year student studying Chemistry with German, has won a prestigious and competitive award from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) - the German Academic Exchange Service.
Summer placement
During the summer of 2014, before spending his third year studying Chemistry in Würzburg, Joe will head for the city of Hannover in the German state of Lower Saxony, where he will be working on a research project in an area of Inorganic Chemistry, supporting a PhD student who is researching into Iron complexes. Funds from the DAAD will cover accommodation and subsistence costs for eight weeks.
This placement will help Joe to improve his German and employment prospects in the future. Joe said: "If I want to work abroad or for a German company in the UK, completing my project in the summer will show that I have the ability to adapt to and work in a completely different environment.
"It will also show that I have the ability to cope with the everyday difficulties that being in a foreign country can pose and that I am aware of cultural differences. I hope the placement will be great for German, Chemistry and life skills, and the prestige of the DAAD Research Internship in Science and Engineering (RISE) programme will look good on the CV.
"I'm just happy I made the right decisions at A level and in choosing Heriot-Watt. The combination of Chemistry with a Language which Heriot-Watt offers is what attracted me. Other universities do Chemistry with a Year in Germany, for example, but the extensive German courses which provide two years of language instruction before the year abroad are what convinced me that Heriot-Watt was the perfect choice. Both the Chemistry and the Language & Intercultural Studies (LINCS) departments have been fantastic".
More information
For more information about the RISE program contact DAAD-lecturer Regina Schmid or visit the DAAD website