On 6 January, the UNNC-Huntsman Intern Half-Year Review meeting was held at the Asia-Pacific R&D Centre of Huntsman in Shanghai. The first cohort of five students majoring in Chemical Engineering and Environmental Engineering delivered presentations to share their work experience and report on their progress in industry.
The Year-in-Industry course is co-organised by the UNNC Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering and the Huntsman Corporation, a prominent global manufacturer and marketer of chemical products. It was launched in April 2021 and the internship officially started last July. Their internship roles include a wide range of positions like Quality Assurance (QA), Lab Analysis, Pilot Tests, and Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) monitoring.
The Year-in-Industry course aims to provide students with opportunities to practice what they have learned from their degree course, whilst also learning new skills - both skills required in the industry and transferrable skills like communication, problem-solving and teamwork, as well as developing qualities such as independence, responsibility and pro-activeness, which are all sought by employers. More importantly, students will obtain unique knowledge which they could not gain from attending on-campus courses, for example, real-world industrial experience, the experience of recruitment processes, building a professional network, application and development of technical knowledge, better employment prospects, etc.
The Year-in-Industry is a great way to enhance students’ CV with industry experience, giving them the opportunity to see what it is like to work in a particular field. Zhile Zhou, an Environmental Engineering student told us that in his third year of study, he was not sure whether it was Environmental Engineering or Environmental Sciences that he had a passion for. “Through this industry course, I am able to have a profound understanding of the Engineering part. I will do another internship in the Science sector later. Only after that, I will be able to make a sound decision on what I am going to do in the future.”
Leaving the campus and spending a year in the industry is not an easy decision for undergraduate students. However, our students believe that it is worth giving it a try. Ying-Tung Shen, a participant from the Chemical Engineering programme said that she works in the Product Safety and Regulatory Compliance team now, and the global working environment there is helping to enhance her soft skills, including how to communicate with colleagues from all over the world and how to prioritise work and time management.
UNNC supervisors and Huntsman project leaders have unanimously complimented the outstanding performance of the interns. Helen Kwok, HR Director from Huntsman, Leaf Ye, UNNC-Huntsman Intern programme coordinator, and Dr Jianing L, Huntsman project leader were glad to see students learn and benefit from this internship.
Dr Philip Hall, Acting Associate Dean for Education and Student Experience, Head of Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, was pleased to see that the students enjoyed this internship and were able to develop their knowledge of the chemical industry. As encouraged by the positive feedback from this internship, Dr Philip Hall emphasised the need to strengthen the collaboration between UNNC and Huntsman at the end of the meeting.