PhD student at UiO
I participated in the DLN industry internship in the autumn of 2022 and had a great internship at ArcticZymes Technologies in Tromsø from September to November. During that time, I was in the third of my four PhD years and had never really been outside of academia. The internship was the perfect opportunity to get a little bit of insight and also to start a network outside of academia. In addition to that it was a welcomed break from the PhD life and an opportunity for me to take a bit of distance from the project that I have been working on for the last three years and to come back with to it with fresh motivation to tackle that last year.
ArcticZymes is a comparably small company which, I think, made my experience there even better. I had the chance to get some insight into different parts of the company, like production, quality control, and also a bit of quality assurance even though my internship project was within research and development (R&D). For the three-month period of the internship, I got my own project to work on in the lab with the supervision of a senior researcher in the R&D team. I felt welcome from the very first day and was included and invited to activities and meetings. This included for example bi-weekly meetings among the “Discovery”-Team of the R&D department, meeting with the whole R&D department, and once-a-month meetings to which the whole company was invited. During one of these general meetings, I was given the opportunity to present myself and the project that I was working on to all the employees. This was an interesting task since the presentations I am used to giving at university are usually for other scientists with similar backgrounds as mine; while for this presentation the audience did not only have a background in natural sciences but for example economics. Looking back at that presentation now, there is room for improvement to make the science behind the project even more understandable for the “broader public”. This is something that, I think, is actually quite an important soft skill to acquire and that I will try to work on; to make science and the projects better understandable for non-scientists.
The DLN internship program provided a valuable opportunity to both, Verena and ArcticZymes. Verena gained insight into the daily business of a biotech company and ArcticZymes had the possibility to allocate a resource on a research project that otherwise would not that easily have been available - ArcticZymes
One great activity offered to the employees of ArcticZymes was weekly strength training; we were working out under the instruction of a trainer in groups of around 20 people. I thought that it was great to see that a good work-life balance was encouraged and I think that it contributes to the productive atmosphere in the company.
Both DLN and my supervisor at ArcticZymes were very helpful with organizing the whole stay.
Centre for Digital Life Norway Industry Internship
PhD students in Norwegian biotechnology have the opportunity to explore career options outside academia through Digital Life Norway’s Internship Program.
New 2023 call is out! Apply by 12 March 2023. ►