On Friday, I went to the Rolls Royce Learning and Development Centre in Derby for the RSC Early Career Energy Sector Chemists Symposium. It was an interesting and varied day, with attendees presenting posters, alongside presentations from those further on in their chemical careers.
The chair of the energy sector committee, Richard Wayne, opened the day with the objectives for us to think about our career direction, network and have fun!
The first presentation was from Paul Stein, the Chief Scientific Officer at Rolls Royce. After a few minutes racking my brain, I realised that I recognised his name as a contributor to my POST note on Big Data in Business! I managed to catch him after his talk to thank him for his help, and he was very complimentary about my note. He spoke about what he considered to be the significant technology trends for the future, and how they were likely to effect Rolls Royce. It was interesting to hear that in-flight engine shut downs used to be commonplace on passenger aircraft, but are now very rare, because of the ability to collect so much data from the engines in flight.
The next two presentations were from Alexander Kilpatrick (who won the poster competition at last year's event) and Alissa Cotton (who won the energy sector PhD thesis award last year). Both spoke about their research and how it progressed into their current job.
It was then our turn to talk... Each of the poster presenters had to do a 2 minute flash presentation about their research, to signpost their poster to the rest of the group. I enjoyed this, as it brings life to the abstract book! We then had lunch and the poster session, in which I had some interesting conversations about my research and also other peoples'.
After lunch, the focus moved from research to careers beginning with a very useful talk from Charlotte Ashley-Roberts from the RSC. We were given lots of good tips about how to look for jobs, how to write a CV and how to come across well at interview.
We then heard from Stephen Preece (Chief Chemist at edf energy) and Professor Upul Wijayantha from Loughborough University. They told us about their career paths, and what they had done that meant they had been able to progress.
Key points that I picked up on from the last few talks were that you really need to know yourself! I will be going away from the event planning to really think about what my strengths are, and how involved with science I want to be in a future job. We were advised to be prepared to move around and do something different to learn more about the company or the research area.
Unfortunately I had to head off before going on the tour of the heritage centre, but I thought it was a very informative day, and an ideal opportunity to present a poster at an event aimed at younger researchers.
The chair of the energy sector committee, Richard Wayne, opened the day with the objectives for us to think about our career direction, network and have fun!
The first presentation was from Paul Stein, the Chief Scientific Officer at Rolls Royce. After a few minutes racking my brain, I realised that I recognised his name as a contributor to my POST note on Big Data in Business! I managed to catch him after his talk to thank him for his help, and he was very complimentary about my note. He spoke about what he considered to be the significant technology trends for the future, and how they were likely to effect Rolls Royce. It was interesting to hear that in-flight engine shut downs used to be commonplace on passenger aircraft, but are now very rare, because of the ability to collect so much data from the engines in flight.
The next two presentations were from Alexander Kilpatrick (who won the poster competition at last year's event) and Alissa Cotton (who won the energy sector PhD thesis award last year). Both spoke about their research and how it progressed into their current job.
 |
| My poster - on my recently published work |
After lunch, the focus moved from research to careers beginning with a very useful talk from Charlotte Ashley-Roberts from the RSC. We were given lots of good tips about how to look for jobs, how to write a CV and how to come across well at interview.
We then heard from Stephen Preece (Chief Chemist at edf energy) and Professor Upul Wijayantha from Loughborough University. They told us about their career paths, and what they had done that meant they had been able to progress.
Key points that I picked up on from the last few talks were that you really need to know yourself! I will be going away from the event planning to really think about what my strengths are, and how involved with science I want to be in a future job. We were advised to be prepared to move around and do something different to learn more about the company or the research area.
Unfortunately I had to head off before going on the tour of the heritage centre, but I thought it was a very informative day, and an ideal opportunity to present a poster at an event aimed at younger researchers.
No comments:
Post a Comment