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Her co-op with a German data analytics and machine-learning artificial intelligence company did not require her to reside in Cologne. But Northeastern University student Ava Knight didn’t let that stop her from learning and working in Europe.
“Since they were saying you’re not really going to need to come into the office, you can just live anywhere in a European time zone — I found a language program in Barcelona, Spain,” says Knight, a fourth-year student at Northeastern with a combined major in data science and biology.
Knight recently completed a co-op with Werusys Industrie Informatik, which is based in Cologne, Germany. While working for the company, she developed an application within a data analytics software that used machine learning to analyze time-series energy usage data from a manufacturing plant in order to identify optimal production conditions.
But Knight explains that the co-op involved a lot of independent coding that could be done outside of typical working hours.
That left mornings free for Spanish classes and immersive experiences around Barcelona.
In many ways the co-op experience reflected the diversity of Knight’s interests and life experiences.
Knight was born in Seattle, but moved to China at age 4 and Singapore at age 8 before returning to the United States when she was 11. She speaks English and Mandarin Chinese. And Knight’s not afraid to be busy — she worked full time for 2½ years while attending Northeastern and still works part time in addition to classes and club activities.
Knight says she learned a lot from her co-op.
Working for Werusys gave Knight her first extensive app development experience and required a lot of problem-solving.
“A large part of programming is finding errors and figuring out why that error is happening and how to fix it,” Knight explains. “But when you’re working in an industry software there’s not a lot of information online or, of course, ChatGPT doesn’t really know how to work with this software that is only used in manufacturing.”
And work culture in Germany is very different than in America, Knight says.
“In Germany, they’re not as praiseful, I suppose,” Knight says. “It’s not like, ‘Good job! Yay! Gold star!’ It’s a lot of ‘OK. Cool. You did the thing we asked you to do.’”
And the Spanish classes?
“One thing that people always told me was ‘Oh Spanish is so easy if you’re already an English speaker,’” Knight says. “It’s not.”
Especially when you’re practicing salsa in a nightclub.
“My friends and I took a lot of salsa classes, and you were in Spain, and you’re in a bar environment, the music is loud, and you’re trying to think in your second or third language — that’s really difficult,” Knight says.
Then there are the life challenges that come with living in a new country.
“I grew up living in other countries and traveling to other countries, but I always had parents and I always had school,” Knight says. “So a huge lesson that I learned was finding my place in a new environment and creating a life for myself there, which is something that I’m hoping will be very useful after I graduate.”
And although her next co-op will be more local — she is working in the immunology and virology department at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston beginning in January — the European experience prepared Knight well for any challenges ahead.
“I went into my first co-op really knowing nothing about back-end design or a lot about software in general,” Knight said. “Well, I figured it out once. There’s no reason why I can’t figure it out again.”