Last week I was at ESACT-UK at Loughborough University’s imago conference centre. I’m managed to snag some pictures and should have my adventures up soon. And yes, all the stuff I promised before should be showing up soon too.
Hi all, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. Well get ready for some excuses for me to weasel out of my guilt.
I’ve just covered the London MCM Expo plus a hands-on preview of a new Mario game which will be keeping me busy for the rest of the week. Why nothing before now? Costume work and plenty of running about on errands.
Hopefully I’ll have a proper post up soon outlining what you can expect over the next few weeks. Maybe even a commentary or two exclusive to my blog about my event coverage extravaganza. Consider it an exercise in critical writing!
Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of the event but Charlie did! Links and updates when I pinch them off her.
As the Biopharmaceutical Process Development EngD has only entered its third year and a team-building trip didn’t happen for the first group of EngDers, it’s feels a little too grand to say that we hold a team-building trip each year. In fact, last year’s trip was the first ever trip.
What is the team-building trip? It’s one of the highlights of the EngDer’s year. The students entering the first year go on a three-day trip with the students entering second year. It happens before any other inductions and generally it’s the first time you properly meet other people on the course. We meet late on a Sunday afternoon (so Roseanne the Receptionist can get a full Sunday lunch in) to spend three hours on a coach to the Lake District.
When you have three hours of bus-riding to fill, people will get talking – where they’re from, what they did before the EngD, how interviews went. It gives the first years to get to know each other and the second years. While there will be a lot of questions concerning the course and projects, the informal setting makes it excellent to find out about people when not in interview mode. This blethering continues through checking into a youth hostel and well into the night as we take over a local pub or two. Typical people in pubs behaviour ensues, but we have Jo the Administrator to maintain order.
It is generally rather subdued and sleepy students making their way onto a bus the next morning for a day of activities. This year’s activities were run by Carnegie Great Outdoors, beginning the day with gorge‑scrambling. Gorge‑scrambling is a mixture of hill‑walking and boulder‑scrambling in a river filled with waterfalls, ledges, and pools. If people were sleepy when they pulled on wetsuits, they were wide awake in the cold water of Church Bend. Split into two teams of nine, each group had to safely make their way up the river. The instructors also added challenges as we went along. At one pool we had a salmon jump competition, at another we climbed halfway up the gorge walls to cannon-ball into a waterfall’s drop pool.
After a good dry off and a simple lunch at the Ambleside Youth Hostel, we started constructing rafts using canoes, barrels, and logs held together with ropes. We second years were a bit wary as last year we did a similar activity at Homescales, but without the canoe. For one team it had ended in complete disaster and a muddy swim to shore. With vague remembrances of how to tie knots, we managed to come up with three very different designs. After a quick change back into wetsuits, we shoved the rafts into chilly Lake Windemere. Seaworthiness was thouroughly tested with several races and amazingly, no one sank. Mastery of the waves accomplished we headed back to our hostel for showers and naps followed by an impressive three course meal at a local grill house. Which was then of course followed by another trip to a pub until closing time. Thanks to some forward thinking, we were able to continue the fun back at the hostel.
A bit of a lie-in the next day, a bit of breakfast, and we were back on the bus to Newcastle. It might have been the quietest bit of the trip as everyone napped or read quietly but it was a comfortable quietness. Except for when Jo spotted a completely K.O.ed Bernie, head back, mouth open, and glasses still on. There was more than a little laughter.
The Legend Himself
The EngD trip is a great opportunity for students to meet. There’s only a maximum of twelve in each year, so we need to be able to support each other whether it be actual project work or simply adjusting to life as a research engineer. This time next year, the first year’s will go on another trip but as the second years. And I’ll be more than a little sad that I can’t go along too.
Students will frequently hear that almost nothing is more important in life than making and maintaining connections and that conferences are the best places to do so. I have no doubt this is true, in fact I’ve seen it in action. My dad has kept in contact with people three companies and more than twenty years ago. Believe me when I say it has paid-off.
The problem is we fresh-faced, naïve students generally haven’t a clue how to this. Sure we’ve mastered Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, and MySpace for informal connections but there’s a massive difference when it comes to presentations at a conference. Just like everything else, we need to develop these skills and the more we practice, the better we get (hopefully).
The Young Researchers Meeting and Career Opportunities Workshop 2011 was a good place to practice. It was open to any PhD students and recent graduates with any connection to biology so there was a wide variety of projects displayed at the poster presentations and in the five-minute powerpoint spiels. Projects ranged from detailed amino acid identification (Sarantos Kyriakopoulos, Imperial College London) to bioreactor mixing patterns (Douglas Marsh, UCL), green biotechnology to convert by-products from a biodiesel process(Anestis Vlysidis, University of Manchester) and blue biotechnology trawling marine bacteria for the next big cure (Jodie Symington, Newcastle University).
I’m emphasising the wide range covered because it’s difficult to stay interested in someone’s work if it isn’t effectively communicated. It’s easy to forget that the person you’re talking to could have a completely different background. Even if both people have the same background, work in the same field, at the same company, they won’t and can’t be as intimate with all the details you take for granted. I know I do this far too much. We generally learn this the hard way. However learning it in a ‘safe’ environment like the Young Researchers Workshop is better than at national conference.
While the activities were mixed up enough to keep things interesting, there were definitely two halves in this conference. The first half was about the researchers presenting work to each other in a fairly relaxed environment. The other half of the conference was focussed more on how to obtain research funding, enhance your CV, and three different case studies following people’s progression from doctorate to post-doc, industry, or lecturing. I personally found the break-out workshops useful. Assigned to different groups, we sat down with industry persons and had a fairly informal blether. We covered how to make a connection, how to follow it up, and generally make yourself known with confidence. All of which can in handy when it came to the drinks reception!
To those of you visiting because of a slip of paper with this blog’s address, thank you. Feel free to leave a message, ask questions, and even talk amongst yourselves in the comments below.
Finally, remember it’s never too early to start networking. We found two masters students at the reception with their supervisor and the photographic proof is below. Good luck with the write-ups and maybe we’ll see you at next year’s workshop!
The Young Researchers Workshop was held at Imperial College London on 13th‑14th September 2011, hosted by the HealthTech and Medicines Knowledge Transfer Network and sponsored by UCB, Imperial College London, Fujifilm Diosynth, ESACT-UK, EPSRC, BBSRC, and Eden Biodesign (who kindly provided the drinks for the reception).
I apologise for how bad the photos are. The camera on my phone is a little rubbish.
Unfortunately my project doesn’t lend itself easily to nice publishable blogs due to confidentiality issues (almost didn’t get to present at the Newcastle EngD Conference!) and working with just historical data. You won’t get nearly as many photos of me in action as you will with Jodie who has a much nicer design than my current one. But I have done a picture so you get an idea of what I do.
Me Working
Mmmmm, exciting stuff. What I have found is that communicating what I’m doing on the computer can be a little difficult (no, it’s not Farmville). So I’ve decided to start scouring the web to find the best ways of explaining what I mean by PCA, PLSR, DA, and the like.
If I can’t find anything decent or at all? Why I’ll do it myself. In fact, I may do that if a decent link can be found. Perhaps even with more amazingly bad doodles to go with it.
Oh you lucky, lucky people.
There’s a variety of projects you can work with in the EngD. Some are located around Newcastle, some are further afield. If yours is around Newcastle, you’re fairly settled down. If yours is somewhere else and you need to be there day to day, life can get a bit hectic. I guess what I’m saying is, the where of the project can be as important as the what.
For example, in the past six weeks I have been:
- Up in Newcastle for a week-long module
- In work for four days
- In Ireland for the Bank Holiday Grand Slam
- Back in work four more days
- Newcastle for a second week
- Just finished another week at work.
Starting this Monday (May 23rd) we have:
- Another week long module
- A week back at work
- A fourth week long module
- One and a half days back at work
- And finally a day long conference back up in Newcastle before we really get into our first year reports.
I quite enjoy all this travel but boy is there a lot of it. In just under three months I will have spent over 40 hours on trains alone and five and a bit weeks living out of a suitcase. While one of those was technically a well-deserved holiday*, I guess the “Not Based At Newcastle” half of or cohort are really living up to our designation as ‘transients.’
At least we get to stay in a hotel and not cardboard boxes like real hobos.
*I can count the times I’ve seen anyone related to me in the past five months on one hand. Another thing to consider if you’re thinking about signing up.
Hi there! How are you? I haven’t a clue who I’m talking to right now but that’s okay as I fancy you haven’t a clue who I am either.
I’m Eppie, currently in my first year of the Engineering Doctorate in Biopharmaceutical Bioprocess Development at Newcastle University. Yeah, it’s a real long name and I’m not 100% sure I’ve even got it down right. We just call it the EngD.
There’s twelve of us in the course this year and around half of us have spread out across the country to start our 3.5 year mission to boldly go where no engineer, chemist, or biologist has gone before (on purpose): each other’s fields. That’s how I ended up with the cell culture department of a pharmaceuticals company 300 miles south in Slough. I’ve been here almost two months now, so I’ll catch you up on what’s happened since I started at Newcastle in September with the next few posts.
I’m not too sure what will be going into these posts. There will be plenty about handling the course and the actual project work, but I’m thinking there will also be quite a bit about adjusting to a proper company without actually been part of the company, what’s caught my eye in engineering or science, and maybe even a little on handling being a proper grown-up.
Anyway, that’s me for now. The ball is in your court. Who are you? What do you think of all this? Is there anything you want me to cover?
