Naivety when entering university

As an undergraduate, I thought that work – at least not before my third year – would be the farthest thing from my mind. Influenced by my childhood love for dinosaurs, my undying passion to be the next David Attenborough as well as a never ending curiosity with the mechanics of the human body, it was always clear that a BSc Biology degree was for me.  I had a wide range of interests and a passion to learn. But entering the world of work at the end of my education? I hadn’t ever really given that too much thought.

Research & Innovation – my placement, my curiosity

As I am writing this blog, I look back on the past year that I have worked within the Research and Innovation Services for the University of Southampton and can confidently say I have had an amazing opportunity. Working under the Health & Pharma Collaboration Manager, I have had the chance to use and develop a wide range of transferrable skills. By organising visits and travelling to see a wide range of companies within the Health & Pharma Sector – from innovative start-up biotechnology companies to manufacturers of environmental control lab systems – I have had to be an effective communicator and a representative of the university as – effectively – a role within business development. This led to the development of a networking cluster of companies within the South of England. I used marketing skills in the form of Social Media and website design to grow the awareness of Health & Pharma collaboration within the university and made endless spreadsheets converted into user-friendly search tools. Aside from having had the chance to work in a busy office environment, I have been able to spread my scientific curiosity by investigating current and innovative biotechnology strategies within external organisations as well as current, novel research in all themes of biological sciences, medicine and engineering at the University. You have to remember that work placements provide more than just a nice bit of money at the end of the month – otherwise you won’t make the most out of your opportunity.

So what does a placement involve?

Every placement is different – that is why internships and studentships could never be ‘boring’ – they are there to let you show, as an innovative individual, how you can go in and dynamically affect a workplace – what can you achieve? Who can you impress? When it came to the start of my placement, I was nervous. That’s natural. Nervous means you care, that you are passionate about how you, as an individual, will come across in this role. It shows that you are conscious of what you have to do and of the consequences there would be if you do not give 110%.

My placement (if you’re interested)

Despite the nerves, I soon settled into my desk (I sat in almost every other employee’s desk by the end of my placement) and began making my way through a list of companies already compiled by Brigitte that fitted within our health and pharma profile. These included small start-up companies which had been spun-out from the University, such as Fluorogenics and Synairgen, to the huge pharmaceutical leaders: Eli Lilly and Pall. Of the 300-odd E-Mails I sent out, I received 30 replies and quickly began arranging meetings.

Something I learnt however is that simple things may occasionally seem like big things. A big tip from me, therefore, would be this. Take your time, keep your cool, be yourself and try not to panic at the slightest mishap. The most worrying time of my placement came three days in when RIS Director, Don Spalinger, silently approached me and invited me into his office. I thought that was it and that I’d messed up terribly, goodbye internship. However he assured me that everything was okay and that I had accidentally caused confusion for an academic due to my (to begin with) rash Email sending. From this point onwards, I took my time.

Half way through my placement, I was introduced to some great colleagues, David Steynor and Ben Willmott, and I began working on a second project alongside the cluster formation. I was developing a tool in Excel to be used within RIS that allows the searching of academics by faculty or research groups and returns current projects, company affiliations and any journal affiliations as a place to search for their work.

This taught me crucial skills on Excel that I had never considered learning, or had ever believed I would ever know, using complicated formulas such as:

=IF(INDEX(‘AcademicUnits’!$A:$A,’AcademicUnits’!$D$2+ROW(H1)=$B$3,INDEX(‘Academic Units’!$B:$B,’Academic Units’!$D$2+ROW(H1)-1),””)

Ouch.

By the end of the two weeks on this project, we had developed the beginning of what could be turned into a sophisticated search tool with a heavy database that could be built on further. Already, that’s something I can say I made an impact on.

As most of August was busy due to holidays and absence, a lot of meetings had been backlogged to September, but despite this, as representatives for University of Southampton health and pharma, we were able to begin a long, busy and exciting period of meetings with a wide range of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. This is what I had been waiting for. From each of these, I came away with knowledge of their business and my knowledge of the diversity of life science companies increased immensely.

By the end of this period, we had a succesfully networking cluster of 18 Life Science companies in the South of England. We were pretty happy with this after a months work.

What happens afterwards?

Since completing my first internships during term time of my first year, I have since been invited – that’s right, invited! – back on two successive placements, one of which being the summer placement. Each time, I have taken up new tasks relating to previous projects, and taken things in different directions. This has allowed me to approach my position as a marketer of Southampton Health & Pharma, an organiser of events, a communicator and as an (amateur) Excel user to manipulate spreadsheets, and big data, to the benefit of others. I have definitely gained a lot from taking this position, originally entitled ‘Annual Health & Pharma Collaboration Conference 2014 – Event Organiser Intern’. The benefits of placements are huge and to name but a few:

• An insight into the working world – probably the scariest thing.
• Meeting a wide diversity of influential people.
• Increasing your knowledge of a particular subject – in my case, it was the application of my specific degree to the unknown business side of science.
• Getting more out of your university experience.
• Something to talk about – experience on your CV is key and a student placement is perfect.
• Sets you apart from the majority – studentships are often tailored to people so could become very specific to you as an individual and be a unique opportunity.
• Keeps you off the streets during the summer (I thought I’d throw in something my mother said to me).

A message to students

I only have two points to any students who happen to be reading this: (1) if you get offered a job, take it. At the end of the day if you don’t like it, it’s still a huge leap on your path to finding a career you enjoy. It may not be related to that fancy surgeon job you eventually aspire to have but it will secure you vital skills to separate you from the pack when it comes to the dreaded application process. (2) Search for jobs you like and ask around in areas which you enjoy. If you want to be a chemist, don’t talk to a business developer for a telecommunications company (just one example). It sometimes is as simple as asking the right question to the right person at the right time. Trust me on that point; it’s how I got my internship! To sum up, go out there and take opportunities that life throws at you. Opportunities won’t find you if you aren’t looking, however when you have found something, the possibilities could (potentially) be endless.

Look how happy these interns look! This could be you!