Work Placement Diary: Camery Ma Yii Earn – post 2

Student experience 23rd September 2019

Today we are catching up with Camery who is on her placement year at FiberLean Technologies Ltd as part of the MChem (Hons) Chemistry with Industrial Experience programme. She’s letting us know a bit more about her placement and how she is settling in. 

It has been almost 2 months since I started my R&D Chemistry placement with FiberLean Technologies Ltd (Imerys & Omya joint venture), Cornwall on 22^nd July. I moved to live in a shared house in St. Austell a few days before that and got to mingle with two other housemates who are also Chemistry placement students from other universities. In total, the Imerys company employs 7 placement students this year and most of us work at the same site. We have our lunch breaks together and spend time exploring nearby scenic places (many beaches!) during the weekends. Unlike Manchester, the towns here are small and quiet, many shops shut early evening which I found slightly inconvenient at first. However, with good planning and fun time spent with friends, I found myself settled in well in a matter of 1 or 2 weeks.

First day at work

During the first day at work, I met with my supervisor and had a brief verbal introduction from him regarding the company, work nature, and a few ongoing projects. Then, together with other placement students, I received an induction which included talks about health and safety (environmental awareness, risk assessment) as well as HR-related stuff like holidays and making an employee access pass. I also was given a building tour and PPE set (safety glasses, lab coat, safety boots, high-vis jacket). Towards the end of the day, I was assigned to a personal office table space, work laptop, desktop screen etc. and tried to familiarise myself with the official company online portal.

My placement project

My project is R&D in nature and is at quite an early stage of development. To date, my day-to-day tasks involve making different types of thick paper sheets and carrying out multiple tests to determine their properties like the tensile strength, bending stiffness etc.. Each sample may vary in terms of the pulp sources, the compositions (whether company product is added and at what level) etc.. My project aims to discover the paper/cardboard-like material that has the most desirable properties for a particular packaging application.

Uni life  vs working Life

My daily routine becomes more rigid after starting work so I have been learning to discipline myself more. However, I am rather fortunate that the company supports quite a flexible work culture. I work from 8am to 4pm every weekday, but other employees here can work anytime between 7-9am and end anytime between 3-5pm. Unlike university mandatory lab day(s), here I work independently so it is almost entirely up to me to plan my work schedule every day, such as when to do lab work and when to do data interpretation in the office etc.. I report to my supervisor whenever I have got some progress in my work, and everyone here including my supervisor have been really helpful and nice.

Also, one of my favourite things about working life for now is that I do not have to think about or do any real work after I leave my workplace – I have the entire night to do whatever I want without any guilt (at least until the placement distance learning courses start). Of course, work can get quite stressful too especially when I make mistakes or somehow fail to get good experimental results and progress, but this is just part and parcel of an R&D job and you just have to be brave to consult others and learn from the experience. Overall, I like what I am doing now and am glad of my decision to do an industrial placement year.

CameryFiberlean Technologies LtdWork Placement Diary