Student exchange with Shanghai Jiaotong University

Imagine travelling in a train for 1.5 hours straight – and when you hop off, you’re still in the same city. Come to Shanghai to make this experience for 0.66 EUR.
And since you already there, you might want to check out a few other places: If you’re into physics, make sure to pay a visit to the department at Jiao Tong University.
Placed in a charming, peaceful campus, housing some 30.000 students, you’ll find the basecamp of Professor Xiangdong Ji. Ever heard of the Panda-X experiment? He is the man in charge. A former field theorist, now converted to hands-on experimental physics, Xiangdong Ji is the head of the group of physicists that has been setting up the most sophisticated trap for dark matter so far. You want to know how a barrel of liquid xenon, buried deep in the Rock of the Sichuan mountains, might reveal the answer to one of the big questions of contemporary physics? Well, then I’d strongly recommend a course in particle detection by the master himself. It turned out that, apart from being an exciting scientist, Xiangdong Ji is also a brilliant lecturer.
Of course, there is plenty of other research going on at Jiao Tong as well. Ask Laura Herold about her project at the institute for laser physics – maybe, you’ll even be able to make first contact for a research internship on the other side of the globe.

If you need a break from science, catch a train to the city center. Nothing better to do on a Friday night than heading out for a karaoke-session at the foot of the Pudong skyscrapers or grabbing some delicious food at the little restaurants near people-square.
If you don’t feel like travelling downtown, you can just hang out at Timo’s café opposite to Cafeteria 1 to have a Hong-Kong milk tea with some chinese students. Quite honestly, these new friends were the best part for me.
If all this sounds fun to you, you’d have loved the elite- programm’s field trip to China in March 2016. But don’t worry: the next trip is sure to come!

Moritz Möller, Laura Herold