Work Placement Diary: Charlotte Wormser – post 2
Chemistry in the real world Student experience 3 December 2019
Charlotte is a third year student currently on a year in industry at Henkel in Germany. Three months into her placement, she discusses with us how she has been getting on and the differences between university life and working.
3 months at work:
After 3 months at work, I have settled in well and all my colleagues have been very welcoming and helpful. I have been taught how to use all the machines that I am currently using in the development of the product. During the year, I will be given two projects and I am currently working on my first one.
I have been very autonomous with my project and I can work at my own pace. The work I was conducting at the start of my project, had a lot to do with screening of raw materials which had to be tested to determine the compatibility of their polarities, as well as the refractive index were determined, and the viscosities were measured. After finding the correct raw materials, I started working on potential formulations for the product demanded by the customer. Working on formulation is time and patience demanding work as mostly it is repetitive, and the results do not always come out as expected.
Placement VS Uni Life
I can say that it is difficult to get used to the working lifestyle when all your life has been around studying. The main differences between work and university are:
- Working times: University has very distinct times at which lectures, tutorials and teaching labs are scheduled and the rest of the time is self-studying at times wanted. At work, the times are regulated as 40 hours per week are mandatory. I can arrive at work between 6 and 9 am and leave between 3 and 5 pm. During working hours, the daily tasks that you set yourself can be done quite quickly as usually the testing takes up most of the time. Therefore while waiting for tests to be conducted, you have some time to work on other tasks which can come from your University work.
- Work type: At university, in year one and two especially, the projects that are given to you are to be finished by the end of the day. The week after, you are given a very different project to work on. At work, you get given big projects that must be worked on for months therefore time management is very important as customers have aimed end dates and results have to be presented.
- Results: The projects given by the university have for objective to teach you chemistry whereas at work, the knowledge you acquire from university is being used to help develop products. Results obtained in laboratories at university, are designed to help you ameliorate accuracy and reliability. At work reliability and accuracy of results are key to correctly develop products therefore there is no room for error.
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