CATIA work placement in Béthune – between Leipzig and the English Channel

Author: Joseph Uhlig

Sunday: Arrival

The day gets off to an early start and the course trip begins in front of the Nieper Building, which has now grown dear to our hearts. Our group, consisting of 15 fourth-semester Bachelor’s students in Mechanical Engineering, is getting ready to travel to distant France.

Right on schedule, we reach our sat-nav destination – the Hotel Cerise – to the minute. For the price, there’s nothing to complain about when it comes to the rooms. We’re sharing rooms in pairs, although there’d even be room for a third person in the loft bed.

The HTWK seems to be sparing no expense or effort for us. Our future contact, Martin Geiß, had recommended a tavern with cheap beer for the evening in advance. The first culture shock came straight away when we realised that ‘cheap beer’ is defined differently in France. Despite the long journey, it was a successful first day.

Monday: Welcome

We were picked up by our lecturers, Anke Bucher and Peter Schulze, and driven to the Université d’Artois, a five-minute drive away. After breakfast in the canteen, we were full and raring to go; following a brief introduction by Professor Schulze, we finally got to the part of the study trip we’d been looking forward to: the CATIA session, delivered in English by Pascal Kasperek. However, a general sense of disillusionment quickly set in when we learnt about the structure of the course.

Instead of CATIA, we would be working with Excel until Wednesday. The topic: macros. But as is so often the case at university, it is only in hindsight that one realises the purpose of a particular subject area. Hence the advice: it’s worth getting involved and sticking with it. Once we’d worked through the first few macros, it was time for lunch again. Our contact, Professor Martin Geiß, arranged our first meeting with the French students, who joined us for lunch. Even more full than in the morning and not quite as motivated, we set about the second part of the seminar. Our anticipation of finally being able to work with CATIA on Wednesday is growing. Our perseverance was rewarded by an evening visit to a restaurant, where we were able to further strengthen our bonds with the French students.

Tuesday: Lille

It’s amazing how quickly routine creeps into everyday life. We’re slowly getting used to the macros and our professor, Pascal: “Remember, random number!”. A city tour of Lille is scheduled for the afternoon, during which two French students accompany us and Martin Geiß shows us round the city. He really knows his stuff and doesn’t give us a typically torturously boring city tour, but instead guides us through Lille in a relaxed, laid-back manner with entertaining stories and insider tips. After the tour ends and we say goodbye to Martin Geiß, we wander through Lille with the two French students and enjoy the time together.

Wednesday: CATIA

The day of truth arrives. We begin working with CATIA. However, anyone expecting exciting topics such as open spaces or FEM will be disappointed. We’re working with macros. Broadly speaking, the aim of the whole thing is to document the process of creating components so that, in the end, we can produce finished components, each with adjustable dimensions. Anyone who chose the optional module in Computer Science in their fourth semester might find this useful.

However, no prior knowledge is required. The supervising professor explains the topics very clearly and comprehensively, and takes the time to clarify things for each individual student if necessary. That said, it can’t do any harm to read up a little on the subject beforehand. After the lecture, there were no further plans for the afternoon, so we took the opportunity to go on a day trip to the coast.

Thursday: Company visit

In the morning, the same familiar routine takes place and we consolidate the skills we’ve learnt. After the session, however, there’s a surprising twist: the company tour planned for the afternoon is cancelled. For some reason, the French seem to go on strike quite often. We quickly reorganised things so that we could fit the programme planned for Friday into Thursday afternoon. This went surprisingly smoothly. In between, we had a bit of small talk with the French students and shared some local treats. Russian bread and Nordhäuser Korn seemed to go down particularly well.

In January 2018, we’ll be taking on the role of hosts for the students from the Université d’Artois and hope to make a similarly good impression of our university and our home town.