AUSTRIA IST AUSTRIA Third Year Undergraduate (of a four year course), MBiol Biology, In-person internship Work Projects My project consisted of two main aims, data analysis and modelling. I was working with a set of demographic data collected between 2009 and 2019 from a population of plants and had to analyse demographic variables such as no. flowering stems and presence/absence over the years. To achieve this, I used the programming language R. Moreover, I developed a model for presence/absence and used it to calculate maximum likelihood estimates for the three parameters in the model. I was also trying to model the fitness of these plants using this demographic data, however, I ran out of time before I could finish this. Daily Life I spent most of my days working in the office of the research group, surrounded by other members of the group. I was accommodated on campus along with around 30 or 40 other interns which I had plenty of opportunity to socialise with. We often ate lunch and had coffee breaks together and played table tennis or pool in the communal areas in the evenings. On the weekends, I spent a lot of time exploring Vienna with the other interns, going to museums and cafes as well as bars and clubs in the evenings. We also travelled to other cities nearby such as Budapest, Salzburg, Linz and Prague. Although my research group was quite busy and many were still working from home, I settled in very easily due to the inclusiveness of the other interns I was with. I met some lovely people who I hope to stay friends with in the future.
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