Working as a
PhD student between
France & Denmark 58
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Charlotte Zborowski First of all, I am sorry if my English is not really good. I make efforts but if one day you go to France, you will quickly be aware that our English level is globally really bad. So I will try to share here the best and the worst of my experience. Firstly my name is Charlotte Zborowski, I am 25 years old and I come from a little town near Paris. 59
My road to today Today I work in physics but this was not UHDOO\ P\ DLP DW WKH EHJLQQLQJ $W ÀUVW , DWtended 2 years of preparing school in OrlÊans to enter engineering schools (we used to say it is the royal way because it is the hardest studies you can do in France). However I realized that I didn’t want to become an engineer, so I attended a 3rd year of bachelor in Tours at the university in material sciences (physics and chemistry). In France, there are 4 levels in university studies: Bachelor (3 years), Mastery (1 year), Master (1 year) and PhD (3 years). After my bachelor studies, I decided to attend a ÀUVW \HDU RI PDVWHU\ LQ 1DQR FKHPLVWU\ DQG a second year of a professional master in Engineering for micro and nano-structures in *UHQREOH There are professional and research masters in France, which give you a different approach to sciences, depending on whether you want to work in industry or not – In France, industries prefer to employ engineering school students instead of university students. For some reason there is an ancestral war between these 2 groups and it is therefore important to know where you want to work when you begin your high school studies. The project So I work in physics and my PhD subject is: Analysis of deeply buried interfaces at local scale by electron spectroscopy. In a bit more detail this means: I work on the XPS technic (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy). It is a characterization technic, which uses X-rays to irradiate a material. Electrons are then radiated from the material and detected. The detected electrons have kinetic energies, Ek WKDW DUH PDWHULDO VSHFLÀF :LWK WKLV WHFKQLF \RX FDQ KHQFH ÀQG WKH FKHPLFDO composition of a material. The XPS technic is a surface technic since in the laboratory we can’t analyze more than 10 nm into a material. Some years ago, my 60
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PhD director, Sven Tougaard, developed a treatment method for XPS, which permits us to obtain not only the chemical composition but also the depth distribution. With this method, we can have information from depths 2.5 times deeper than with basic XPS. My objective is to improve this method on the depth scale (synchrotron) and on the local scale (patterned samples) for relevant samples coming from my French employer. A synchrotron is a type of particle accelHUDWRU KDYLQJ DQ HOHFWULF ÀHOG RI À[HG IUHquency with electrons as well as a changing PDJQHWLF ÀHOG ,W LV FDSDEOH RI SURGXFLQJ YHU\ KLJK HQHUJLHV LQ WKH *H9 UDQJH WKDQNV to the acceleration of electrons. )RU H[DPSOH DQ ;36 ODERUDWRU\ VRXUFH KDV DQ HQHUJ\ RI H9 DQG XVXDOO\ ZLWK V\QFKURWURQ , ZRUN ZLWK NH9 6R WKHVH DUH UHDOO\ LPSRUWDQW H[SHULPHQWV Work in a synchrotron is a really strange DQG LQWHUHVWLQJ H[SHULHQFH 6WUDQJH EHcause you often have just few days to work and obtain a session is not easy so you don’t count hours and every hour is important. So sometimes you are awake in the night and go back to sleep during the day. , FDQ¡W GHVFULEH P\ IHHOLQJV WKH ÀUVW WLPH , entered in a Synchrotron, this was awesome and always is for me. ž
Diagram of the photoelectric ŽôŽ½
Picture of the synchrotron Spring-8 in Japan where I worked this summer
Diagram of how the XPS works
61
The reason why I work in cooperation between France and Denmark is, that I have the opportunity to work with Sven and EHQHĂ€W IURP KLV VFLHQWLĂ€F H[SHUWLVH DQG DW WKH same time work with relevant samples from my company.
take in 3 years of PhD is around 100 hours K VFLHQWLÀF DQG K WUDQVYHUVDO 7KH SULmary part of these courses are not evaluated, you just have to be present to validate hours. You don’t have to teach but you can if you wish to and it is paid separately.
Being a very uncommon PhD student My situation is far from simple when it comes to administration. The primary part of my 3K' , ZRUN LQ &($ LQ *UHQREOH )UDQFH The CEA is the French commission for alternative energies and atomic energy. It is a really known public group in France with more than 15 000 employees. The CEA works like an industry, which means that I need to have a supervisor there besides my supervisor from my French university in Lyon.
So I cried when I was informed that I have to take 300h of courses and teach 80h as a Danish student.
6R WKH GLIÀFXOW\ LV KHUH WKDW , KDYH PDQ\ people to coordinate with: the CEA, my Lyon supervisor laboratory (INL), the engineering school where the INL is, the French university, the SDU and the department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy at SDU. I often have to do the same things several times. And as my university is not where I work‌ I often have some problems to take FRXUVHV LQ *UHQREOH EHFDXVH , DP QRW D VWXdent at this university. However, 3 supervisors give you 3 points of view, 3 times more advice and 3 persons to help you during synchrotron sessions. All is a multiple of 3, not only administration papers but also the means and the possibilities! Don’t dream too much though, the salary is not multiplied by 3‌ No Differences between the 2 systems My PhD-agreement has changed some months ago so I now clearly see the differences between being a PhD student in France and being a PhD student in both France and Denmark. In France, the rules are different in each university but the average of hours you should 62
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I began my PhD 1 year ago. During my PhD I will be in Denmark 3 times with a total of 1 year here. The only thing I can say today is: if I could change something in my life, it would not be this! - But maybe the Danish weather. To go to another country on holiday is easy, but moving on your own to a new country to live there is not simple at all. Just succeeding in washing my clothes in a laundroPDW ZKHUH DOO LV H[SODLQHG LQ 'DQLVK IRU PH it was a personal success. Every day, I learn something new about the country, the culture, laws, everything! Around a coffee I could speak a lot about all the differences between France and Denmark but it is not the point.
So if you can enter in PhD studies with an agreement between two countries, do it! You will have a lot of administration papers WR ÀOO RXW EXW \RX ZLOO REWDLQ PRUH DXWR nomy, a better English level or even learn
D QHZ ODQJXDJH KDYH WKH H[SHULHQFH RI several supervisors, more friends if you are sociable, less fears about travelling (after my Japan trip, I think I can go anywhere). So this H[SHULHQFH EURXJKW PH D ORW DQG , KRSH LW will continue to do so. †
Sources: www.map-of-france.co.uk http://www.riken.jp/
http://www.e-orientations.com/ http://www.usinenouvelle.com/