Chemical Engineering
Final Chapter as Chemical Engineering Undergraduate
Rereading the design report that I wrote while working on the new final year research report, this kind of thought comes to my mind, "Ah, I am finally a final year student. This is my final chapter as a Chemical Engineering Undergraduate student". Final semester comes around a lot quicker than I expected. One second I am a first-year student staying in the hostel and going through the orientation weeks, walking every day from the hostel to the class holding a thick textbook. The next second I am a final year student staying with my parents, commuting every morning, and now busy with final year projects. As I am excited to move on to the next phase of my life, I can't help being scared and doubting if I am competent enough to be an engineer.
The final year Research Project and Design project is like the pinnacle of chemical engineering undergraduate studies. You apply all you've learned for the past three years to engineer something and be graded for it. So many drops out because of this one course. Imagine after three years of study, and you suddenly drop out. Doesn't it feel like you've wasted your previous three years? Everyone in class is having a hard time dealing with these two projects. Everyone is being emotionally unstable and extra sensitive. But yea, let us embrace all the chaos that may come in our way.
Chemical Engineering
Internship Experience as Process Engineer
I promised you in my last two posts to share with you guys my internship experience, and it has been four months since I ended my internship period? If you followed my post, you'd know that it was not easy for me to secure one company. I got tons of rejections, but alhamdulillah, I got a call from Carigali Hess offering me a 12-weeks internship program with them.
On the whole, I had a great internship experience. I was a part of the process safety team for the first two weeks. The following week, I was transferred into the process engineering and document control team. I swear I had the best team during my internship. But I remembered that the introduction session wasn't pleasant. I was attacked by my team leader.
He asked me, "What is your expectation from this internship?" and I explained to him generally, to gain knowledge or experience or something. He replied, "That's too general. What do you expect to be taught while working in this department? Do you want to master piping? Instrumental?" I kept quiet as I didn't know what to reply. He added up, "So what are you going to present by the end of your internship? 3 months are too short for you to learn everything here. Even 2 years are not enough." He attacked me again with tonnes of questions. I don't remember what I replied at that time, but I remember I felt miserable like, It is my first day, dude. Let me breathe. Luckily there was my supervisor backed me up, "It's okay if there is any project we can hand it over to her. Let her learn how things work here in 2-3 weeks, then we can give her a project." I relieved.
After two weeks, I transferred to the process engineering team. My supervisor told me, " It is better for you to learn with the process engineering team as you will learn more with them. And as to have a better understanding of process safety, you need to master the whole process first". That is how I transferred to another department (but of course, it is related to the human resource issue too). I had one team leader acting as my supervisor and five other teammates in my new team. Four of them are process engineers and one draughtsman.
 |
| My team with my lecturer. My team leader is not in the picture :( |
Basically, as an intern, there weren't so many things to assign, but every first week of the month was always a hectic week. I had to monitor monthly the performance of every unit and report it to my team at the end of the week. I did a lot of mechanical calculations, which I thought I'd never learned in my class, but in the end, they helped me with my design project. I get to see actual equipment-guided drawings, PFD, and P&ID diagrams. If you are a chemical engineering student, you know that these drawings are confidential. Some companies don't even share them with their interns. My tasks are all relevant to my course, so I'm satisfied with my assignments overall. And I had a very incredible team, regardless of how busy they were, they always guided me and answered every single doubt I had.
 |
| My fellow interns. Fatin is not in the picture. Merajuk kot |
I had an enjoyable internship because of them, my fellow interns. We were all from different departments, but we always had our lunch together (especially when there were free foods!). We barely knew each other, but we acted, joked, argued, and fought as if we'd known each other for three years. Anyway, it is such a blessing to get to know these people, and I always miss them.
We also joined lots of social events held by this company every weekend, such as safety carnival and bowling events. I never missed out tazkirah session we had every Monday afternoon every Thursday for the Lunch and Learn session. It was a great gathering to hear out sharing from the experienced one.
I really really recommend Carigali Hess for an internship experience as it was really enriching. If you follow me and my stories on Instagram, you'd know that I had a very enjoyable internship because I only record enjoyable things, ya know.
P/s: The allowance is more than what PETRONAS pays
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
