MIT-Denmark Student Stories: Bidisha Sen - Internship at University of Copenhagen

2020 did not go as planned.

While the whole world panicked over the highly contagious coronavirus and countries shut down their borders, it was only to be expected that my plans for the year would fall apart. Within a span of two days, my meticulously planned daily schedule flew out the window. Within another two days, a tentative new one was set in its place, and things felt somewhat normal in my Copenhagen apartment while the rest of the world battled with uncertainty.

After all, the lockdown was only for two weeks. This turned into two more weeks, which then turned into an indefinite amount of time. Each tentative reopening date was pushed back by a month, and while having an end date gave a sense of hope, the panic ensuing worldwide was proof of the precariousness of the situation.

A socially distanced outing at the northern seaside town of Hornbæk with friends from lab, John and Alisa.

The day Denmark went into lockdown, the weather matched the chaos I was feeling. Cloudy skies and howling 18mph winds greeted me as I awoke to news of mandatory work from home measures, along with emails and calls from both my lab and MIT about whether I was staying or returning to the US. As people rushed to the stores to stock up on essentials and a falling tree knocked the ventilation system from the roof my apartment, I seriously questioned whether this was the beginning of the apocalypse.

This wasn’t the first setback I have had while in Denmark. Before I had even left Copenhagen airport, I struggled to find someone to process my resident permit after getting my passport stamped in a Schengen country I had transited through. I wrestled with the postal system to receive a shipment from the States that had arrived in Denmark, but was deemed too heavy to be delivered or picked up. My resident permit card got lost in the postal system. I struggled with opening a bank account because of some specifics of my internship. My phone had a tendency to randomly stop connecting to any network, leaving me lost and stranded on multiple occasions.

The amount of a culture shock I faced here after coming from another Western country caught me off guard. Slowly, I learned how to navigate the tiny differences in the way of life between the two countries, like going to a furniture store for pillowcases and hardware stores for lightbulbs instead of relying on Walmart-style departmental stores. Interning in an academic setting, the language barrier never affected me at work, but even elsewhere, everyone politely switched to English as soon as they saw my blank look at hearing Danish. With the help I received from strangers and friends, I managed to somewhat settle down and navigate the issues that kept popping up.

When I struggled to hoist my enormous suitcases and handbags onto the bus to get to my apartment within hours of landing, an already seated passenger and another entering the bus  with me each grabbed a bag and helped me board. When I got lost going to the doctor’s office after injuring my shoulder at the office gym, which was unexpectedly on the bottom floor of a residential building like most small businesses here, a woman walking her dog kindly walked with me until I reached the correct street. When my own phone became unreliable to use, the senior advisor at work generously lent me her phone. When that one infuriatingly died on way to a lab mate’s housewarming party Halloween night, a helpful pedestrian guided me to the right bus without questioning my costume, and even ran after me to correct a misunderstanding about bus numbers so I wouldn’t become more lost.

A bike ride along the southern coast of Zealand to Stevns Klint and Rødvig with another friend from lab, Nikki, and my PI, Prof. Charles Steinhardt.

At work, things were no different. My lab mates and PI always seemed to have time to help me with both small problems with day to day life, like where to buy Tupperware, as well as larger questions related to work and my career plans. The center director introduced me to various potential PhD mentors at the university where I was working. When I started my internship, my career path seemed rigid: go to grad school in the field I had completed my undergraduate thesis in and then work in academia. Numerous enlightening conversations with my PI later, I had an epiphany about what I truly wanted to pursue in grad school after considering other options I had blindly ignored before.

It was at the hyggelig work Christmas party where I finally realized that Copenhagen had become home. As a first generation immigrant, defining “home” has always been challenging. Home for me has always been people, rather than a place. Now, for the first time, I have a city to call my own. A city with wonderful people who helped strangers like they would a friend. A city where I discovered how to be capable of handling whatever obstacle life threw in my way. Copenhagen is my city.

So when the global pandemic hit, I knew I wanted to stay put. Not only had I established a strong network here, but more than that, I would be safer in country that enforced preemptive measures and had a great healthcare system.

Truly, Denmark has been handling this crisis effectively. Stores have stayed stocked, and people mostly maintain their distance. Cases rapidly plateaued, to the point that some critics call it too successful, and worry about an upcoming spike in cases after reopening the country. Surprisingly, masks are not mandatory— few people wear them inside or out, but people trust others to self-quarantine if they are sick.

Outside, the sun has shined more in the last couple months than probably the entire winter. With that, more Danes than I have ever seen outside at one time continue to picnic in the parks and flock to the coast. A few friends and I go on socially distanced outings when we get stir crazy working from home, taking advantage of the daily 17 hours of sunlight. We have learned that there is now a correct direction to walk in parks and by the lakes. When I feel overwhelmed, my PI offers me unwavering support.

Life continues as the country slowly reopens in phases. A new normal has been established, with restrictions on the number of people inside buildings and socializing outside. My list of continental European attractions to visit remains untouched, but I now have the opportunity to discover more of the city and reconnect with friends here and back home. In some sense, social distancing has brought me closer to people in my life. So while the future is still uncertain and the coronavirus has significantly changed life, I am thankful to have support of friends and family from both my home here and the US.

This blog post was written by Bidisha Sen SB ‘19, Physics, Mathematical Economics. Bidisha interned at the Cosmic DAWN Center of the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. She made the decision to stay Denmark after the completion of her MIT-Denmark program to continue her research.