Recently in Training Category

By Lara Mcnamee

IChemE will be holding its Awards for Innovation and Excellence on 4 November in Manchester, UK. The event, now in its 17th year, will mark both individual and team achievement. Included in the awards line up is an award for education and training - sponsored by Cogent.

This award recognizes the individual or team that best demonstrates innovation in training, development of staff or education of a wider community, that changes public perception, develops young people, or addresses a chemical engineering skills gap.

Among the other accolades available is a core chemical engineering award, an engineering project of the year award and the young engineer of the year award.

The deadline for entries is 16 July. For more information contact Matt Stalker.

By Lara Mcnamee

Bayer says that applications for the scholarship programmes of the Bayer Science & Education Foundation can now be submitted. In the academic sector, students can apply for a Bayer, Carl Duisberg or Kurt Hansen scholarship if they are aiming to undertake a study project abroad.

The fields of study funded include biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, bioprocess engineering, chemistry, chemical engineering, medicine, pharmacy, physics, statistics/biometrics and teacher training in scientific subjects.

Each year the Bayer foundation makes available a total of up to €150,000 for these scholarships. Sponsorship is open to students from Germany who are planning a period abroad and students from foreign countries who are looking to spend a period of study in Germany.

For the first time, the scholarships in the academic sector are being supplemented by Hermann Strenger scholarships to support young people looking to gain initial work experience as part of a non-academic training programme.

Applications are invited from trainees in commercial, industrial, scientific and medical occupations and young professionals in these fields who have completed their training within the past two years.

With this new programme, the Bayer Science & Education Foundation is looking to offer targeted funding to young people in the non-academic sector to allow them to gain professional experience abroad. The foundation will this year provide a further €50,000 for this programme.

The closing date for applications for all four scholarship programmes is 15 July 2010. The application documents are available online. An independent scientific committee will decide on the allocation of funding in mid-September 2010.

By Lara Mcnamee

ExxonMobil is launching the 39th year of its community summer jobs programme, providing interns for 270 non profit agencies across America for eight weeks over the summer.

Students receive a paid internship allowing them to gain hands-on experience in a wide range of community organisations and the agencies benefit from support during the peak summer months. The programme also offers professional development opportunities and encourages non profit service among students viewed as future community leaders.

ExxonMobil says it has provided $16.3m to fund nearly 4,400 internships since the programme was founded in 1971. In 2010, ExxonMobil expects to contribute around $950,000 to fund 320 positions in Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming. The programme has also extended to New Jersey for the first time.

Non profit organisations selected for the programme include health, social services, education, arts and emergency assistance. While working with these organisations, interns gain hands-on experience related to their career paths, from social work and volunteer coordination to website management and marketing.

In addition to their internships, students also participate in professional development activities and group service projects in their respective cities. Interns are paid for all time spent in the programme.

For more information about the community summer jobs programme visit www.exxonmobil.com/csjp.

Average salaries for chartered chemical engineers in the UK and Ireland have risen by 5% since 2008, according to IChemE (the Institution of Chemical Engineers).

Results of the IChem 2010 UK and Ireland Salary Survey reveal that the median salary for a chartered chemical engineer is now £60,400, compared with £57,500 in 2008. A chartered chemical engineer aged 30-39 will typically earn around £8,500/y more than a non chartered chemical engineer of the same age.

Considering a career in the chemical sector? Here are a few videos from IChemE that may provide an insight into life as a chemical engineer...

In the second installment, Ryan Murphy, a scientist just starting out on his career with Rhodia shares his first impressions of the chemical industry.

"I started working at Rhodia just before Christmas, so the first few weeks were pretty slow.  Normally, not being busy bothers me but it was actually really good to have time to learn general things like, how to do I use Outlook Calendar?  Where do people eat lunch?  And what route to work avoids traffic and takes me past a coffee place? 

After the holidays, things really picked up.  I started to focus on an energy-related scouting project, and it is exciting to be developing new technologies for the company. Even though the technical arena we are looking into is new to me, I was still able to immediately contribute with the technical and project management side of things, which felt great.

A few notables from my experience so far: First, there is a big difference between academia and industry when it comes to getting up to speed.  At Rhodia, I was trained in the company's safety policies and other procedures in the first days. I think when you're hired as a scientist for a company, that company is investing in you and your skills so they want to start seeing returns on that investment as quickly as possible.  It's just the nature of the business to get moving right away. It's fast-paced but the experience has actually been a lot of fun.

Second, the day-to-day work experience is quite different than in academia and government research.  Working in R&D at Rhodia requires more time in the office, in meetings and project planning.  This wasn't a shocker to me, but I bring it up because I think some scientists might consider that a turn-off.  I actually think the mix is stimulating.  Lab work can be really exciting and rewarding, but at times it can also be unbelievably frustrating and mentally taxing.  Personally I think a mixture of technical work and project planning is a perfect balance.

One last thing: It feels really nice to be doing what I love and making decent money for it!
 
That's my experience to date.  I am excited about the next few weeks. Right now everyone at Rhodia is ramping up for the inauguration of the COMPASS lab, which will bring together the upper management from the CNRS, Rhodia North America, Rhodia France and the principal investigators from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as outside guests for a two-day symposium and ceremony. It will be interesting to hear the feedback about the lab's format, projects and future opportunities.  Stay tuned..."

•    Ryan Murphy joined Rhodia in December 2009 and is a senior scientist at Rhodia's Center for Research and Technology in Bristol, Pennsylvania in the US.

Click here if you missed Ryan's first entry and introduction.