Work Placement Diary: Ben Asher – post 3
Student experience 28 October 2019
Ben Asher is a 3rd Year MChem (Hons) Chemistry with Industrial Experience Student currently on placement with Scapa. Here he lets us know a bit more about what he is up to and how he has settled in.
Settling in
I have now been at Scapa for almost 2 months and am settling in nicely. My first few weeks consisted of getting to know my way around the site and meeting my colleagues. I settled in very quickly and was welcomed by everyone. I spent a number of days with the different sectors of the site including a day on the shop floor and time with the quality department. During these weeks I also learnt the various tests and practical techniques that I would need to utilise throughout the year. Most of these were new to me but I soon picked them up after a bit of practice. My colleagues were always happy to help out if I did have any problems or questions regarding my work which helped me to gain confidence when conducting testing that needed to be accurate and reliable.
Following this period, I began to work on the main project I am conducting regarding the replacement of a current raw material with a new one that will improve the production speed and save the company money in the long term. Alongside this, I am helping out within the R&D department on various projects and technical services for customers. Most of this work is based around trying out new ideas and testing the results to see if they fit the specifications that are required for the customer.
Being on placement compared to university life
There are a few similarities between a typical day here and a day at University. The main one is that similarly to University, I spend a fair amount of my time working in the lab here. Following this, I write up my results in a similar manner to writing a lab report for one of the University experiments.
Aside from this, almost everything else is different. For instance, I have a much more regimented timetable here with work beginning and ending at the same time every day whereas at University the length of the working day can vary massively. The other big difference is that once you leave work you are free for the rest of the day. At University, there is always work you can be doing whether it be revising or completing outstanding work. Furthermore, I value my weekends far more than at University as there is little time to relax properly in the week.
The next few weeks look to be quite busy as my main project begins to take shape and a professor from University is visiting me to see how I am getting on. Soon, I will start work on other smaller projects also for the R&D department which include working with fire retardant materials.
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