Grand Finale

I finished up my final day with the company today. I had a very great experience during my six weeks with the company. My final two weeks were very busy but filled with excitement. It involved lunch with the owners, a possible breakthrough on the project, a presentation to the company, more free lunches, and a company softball game.

In having lunch with the company owners, I discussed with them what they were looking for in top potential employees. They stressed the idea of diversity. In today's global work environment it is important to be as diverse as possible. They have workers who need to have science background as well as other education depending on their job. For example, they have patent lawyers who work for them and it is very beneficial for them to have a science background. They said this is happening all over the science industry. They love to have employees who are specialized in more than one area.

The project in which I was working on took a little different direction due to my previous work. Instead of continuing on with the exact objectives that they gave me, I began investigating a different idea of the project due to my findings. The company gave me the freedom to pursue this other alternative and I may have sparked an idea that could lead to a new alternative for the novel compound they are extracting.

As part of my time at the company, they had me give a presentation to the department on my summer work. This was a great opportunity to discuss about IMSEP and also share my findings will working on the project during my 6 weeks. I received great feedback about my work and proposed ideas. This even an involved a discussion with the VP of the department how they planned on pursuing my ideas even further.

The presentation was followed by a day of team building activities which was focused on helping to make the department even more productive. I actually participated in a few activities that I would like to carry into the classroom to help my make classroom more productive and team-like. This day ended with a very fun activity. We had a company softball game which was very fun activity to have at the end of my experience.

This was a tremendous experience and it has better equipped me to prepare my students for the 21st century job field. I learned a lot about the science industry. There are a number of different job opportunities in the science industry outside of just lab work. Also, technology and communication is at the center of the science industry. I will be able to share ideas about the science industry with my students, engage students in work-like activities, and help prepare students who are wanting to a pursue a career in chemical industry.