Harry Futcher: My research placement experience
Research and impact Student experience 6th October 2020
My name is Harry and I am a recent MChem Chemistry with International Study graduate from the University of Manchester. I am continuing my studies at the university as I begin a PhD in Chemistry.
My desire to undertake a PhD was heavily influenced by the research experiences I have had throughout my time in Manchester. After having my first taste of research in 3rd year, I was eager to try more and began searching for a summer research placement.
One of the benefits of the university is CareersLink (https://www.careers.manchester.ac.uk/careerslink/), a website advertising a variety of employment opportunities from grad schemes to summer placements. It was through CareersLink that I was lucky enough to find a funded summer placement at the university through the BBSRC summer REP scheme. BBSRC funded placements are organised by the university every summer and typically feature a variety of chemistry based projects with a relation to the biological sciences.
My placement was over an 8 week period, and I was tasked with computationally developing a reaction profile for the reduction of hydrazine on a [MoFe3S4] cubane. Today, significant emphasis is placed upon computational chemistry in order to rationalise the chemistry we observe in the real world. As such, it is unlikely that you would find a chemistry journal article today which wouldn’t feature a section on computational work.
The placement allowed me to develop my computational skills but, most importantly, it gave me more insight into how a career in research could look and ultimately played a significant role in my decision to continue my studies as a PhD student.
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