When I first began my research here in Italy, the Italian professor and graduate student were very helpful in explaining the overall goals of their research. They gave very good explanations of why and how they were doing their work. I feel like this broad overview of research was different than my first research project in the US. While both professors explained the goals of their research, the Italian professor focused slightly more on the physics, which I appreciated.
I have also experienced more meticulous research methods than I am used to, which is something I will try to bring back with me. For example, the postdoctoral researcher (who is Portuguese) that I work with is very focused on getting things right the first time, whether it is detailing (and even time stamping!) your notes, to arranging scientific plots. The graduate student I work with always tells me that we should be able to justify our steps in the research process. Whether it is a new dataset we are given, or applying functions to data, we should always be able to explain physically why we apply these steps. The postdoc has also emphasized that if we get too lost in the data, we should always look at the physics to guide our understanding.
