Internship is always a good opportunity to apply your knowledge in practice and see how fire engineers’ work looks like in reality. As I mentioned in my last blog, due to pandemic some internship offers were cancelled, but some companies still provided such opportunity with combined or online mode of operation. As Haydn did in his blog, I will split the post about internships into two parts as well. First, let’s read about internship experience of Elena and Bianca.
Elena
Where did you undertake your internship?
I did my internship at DBI (The Danish Institute of Fire and Security Technology) in the Advanced Services department.
What projects you were working on? What sort of activities did you undertake?
I worked mainly on testing of fire retardants in wood but also tested some cladding materials. This means a lot of testing and data analysis. I got to design and perform factorial experiments and analyse the results using RStudio, MATLAB and a software designed for the measuring device. (In fact, maybe I chose a wrong subject as experimental design for optimization is so much fun!) The result of the project was a recommendation of testing methodology.
What did you like the most about your internship?
I liked when I had to use my method and suggest which of the cladding material samples contained polyethylene and explain why. It was a bit like a detective work and it worked well! I was very anxious while waiting for the data to see if I guessed right.
What challenges did you have?
How to obtain the samples from companies in time, which testing set-ups to use, which suspension agents are the best, how many factors in factorial design to choose and which should be placed first to avoid aliasing, how to do coding of factors with different levels and how to add covariates into the coding, what should be the outcome, how to improve model’s predicting abilities, how to randomize the tests were just a few challenges to mention. 😊
Do you have any advice for future students?
Do you have some skills that you think can be useful at DBI? Don’t hesitate to write and tell them about it and what you want to work with, you will not regret it!
Bianca
Where did you undertake your internship?
I’m doing my internship remotely for a company called B&F (Basler & Hofmann) located in Zurich, Switzerland. I am currently in Sweden, so I am doing all the work from home due to COVID-19.
What projects you were working on? What sort of activities did you undertake?
My internship is focused mainly in research. The proposal topic is “Fire safety in heritage buildings, case analyses and literature research”. This type of internship suits very well our current restrictive situation. So, I do my research and literary review and we have a peer review session with the company once every two weeks, to show them our findings. As I am a ‘visual person’, as per say, I always summarize and present it in PowerPoint format. But it could be presented by scrolling down a word document too. We are free to present in whatever way suits us better, as long as the information is put across efficiently.
What did you like the most about your internship?
I am free to organize my time and structure my activities; being able to balance between work and leisure (my current location also helps in making that possible). But what I like the most about my internship is that the topic is directly linked to my thesis, so everything I am reading and reviewing now will be used later in my paper. I could contact my future thesis supervisors and they were willing to help me giving me directions and support even during this summer work. Also, the internship providers/supervisors are absolutely nice, thoughtful, approachable, knowledgeable, and the communication goes smoothly. There is stimulus rather than pressure and I pretty much like this environment, because it motivates us to always give our best while feeling understood, valued and appreciated.
What challenges did you had?
While one of the great things is the freedom to organize the time to dedicate to the research, time management is also one of the biggest challenges I face. I can’t even remember how many times I changed my routine in order to find one in which I could work effectively. Especially because I have a very short attention span and hence a not very good memory, so usually I need more hours to retain information (but the days are passing so fast… arghhh! And that’s when anxiety comes. (Sigh). So yeah, this is the biggest challenge during these unusual times: managing to keep the balance between mind and body, emotional stability and learning efficiency. Another challenge is regarding finding the best way to present my work. There are so much information available that I tend to get lost, so taking notes and organizing them into a structure becomes very important (but it is not too easy for me).
Do you have any advice for future students?
Well, I am still looking for advices myself! (Laughs). But what I can say is that fear and anxiety will hit you along the way many times, and that’s normal. You will doubt and question your own self a lot, that’s part of the growing process. Just don’t let them beat you down! Identify them, give name to those feelings whatever they are, even if you feel ashamed of them. Find good friends and speak them out. IMFSE is full of thoughtful, kind and compassionate people; don’t be reluctant in finding your best buddies. They will be your family abroad; they will light up your way and walk with you when you feel dark and fearful. The IMFSE team (now talking about the representatives and coordinators) and the Alumni’s are also very approachable and understanding, you can open up with them and ask for advice if you need. Just don’t carry all the burden yourself. This cultural and humanitarian exchange is what I consider to be one of the brightest thing about this programme. It enhances the learning. It helps us grow as a person and hence as a professional.
All in all, although the Fire Safety community is still small, it is very eager to evolve, share and contribute. And that’s what we are here for, right?! You’ve gone so far, don’t give up. Keep up the good work with or without fear. Follow your fire! We will be here for you =)
IMFSE 