During the course of the Summer, we have been catching up with a number of the summer placement students who have, inexplicably, been spending their valuable summer holidays working. Two of these students, Abby Camilleri and Caroline Richardson, are returning from last year. So just why have they decided to come back?

Abby Camilleri

This is my 4th year of summer work experience at Innovative Technology. When I first started here, I viewed as little more than an opportunity to make a bit of extra money, however I learned so much here that I kept coming back.

I have just completed my first year of studying Physics at university, and I believe that my exposure to practical work will help immensely in the coming year of university. In first year, all of the experiments were already set up, so I’ve had to learn how to prepare instruments before I can measure anything. I received a similar boost to my Matlab skills when I was working here last year, and when I was faced with using that program at university, I was way ahead of the rest of the class. I have been working on a high-speed, hyperspectral broadband light source (something simple to begin with!), which aims to capture 1000 frames per second.

While it’s been a worthwhile career experience, it has also been a fun place to work with loads of stuff going on outside of work, such as a company-organised Olympic Games that involved colleagues from offices around the world.

Working here has helped me to realise that I want to follow a career in science, whether that be as a teacher or in a research capacity. I think a lot of work experience roles can often scare away young people from following their passion because they only see a limited perspective of what that career path can offer. Working at ITL, however, was enjoyable throughout and showed me the potential of the Physics degree I am currently studying for.

Caroline Richardson

At the start of the summer, I was tasked with a project involving the creation of test banknotes from huge banks of previous data.

I first applied for a placement at ITL last year, and after a successful interview process I was offered a role here. decided to come back because it was an enjoyable and rewarding experience last year, I also thought I would lose my sanity if I spent the summer doing nothing. Being able to keep my brain running during the summer vacation really allowed me to hit the ground running at the start of the university term, and I hope to do the same this year. Another huge positive compared to other work experience opportunities, is that I really felt as though I was adding value to the company by working here. Rather than simply making tea or scanning documents, I was involved in a project that could potentially revolutionise the way banknote data is utilised at the company, furthermore, my project from last year is still being continued by other people within the Research team.

If I could give one piece of advice to future summer placement students, it would be to always backup your work on a cloud server! I found out about this the hard way, losing some of my work a couple of weeks before I was due to leave. Obviously, I would have preferred to avoid this kind of thing but I was able to redo the section of the project that I had lost much quicker the second time around due to my increased knowledge of the subject. I also think it is vital that people who come into these work experience roles know that they can ask for help at any time. Last year I was perhaps too hesitant to ask when I didn’t understand something fully, but now I’m eager to ask questions to both my supervisors and the rest of the placement students.

I would love to come back next year to gain an in-depth knowledge about an entirely new area of study, and earning a bit of money of the side would of course be a nice little added benefit!

If you are interested in a summer internship at ITl, check out our Careers Page