Fluids Intern Review

The work was challenging, and certainly when I started I had no real knowledge of Enhanced Oil Recovery or fluid mechanics, so the first few weeks were a steep learning curve and at times it felt hard to keep up, but once I'd found my feet I really enjoyed it, the experimental work in particular.

The majority of people on-site were incredibly friendly. There's a lot of interns here, so it's almost like a little family. My managers gave great support, and made me feel like my work was really very important for advancing the group work.

When I first started, I struggled to find my feet and I clashed with my manager as I felt he was putting too much pressure on my shoulders, comparing me to the previous intern who, having just left, had 12 months of experience of the work while I'd barely had three weeks. However, after a while the pressure died down, and he's a lot more supportive. And certainly other senior members of the research group have been incredibly supportive, giving me advice when I needed it and helping me with anything I didn't understand or wasn't able to complete myself.

The level of work has fluctuated over the year. When I first started, there was a lot of work to do in order to get up to speed, so to speak. In the middle of my placement, there was a bit of a lag due to changes in experimental procedure that required a large number of new parts to be delivered before I could continue. Currently, towards the end of my placement, I'm very busy in order to try and get everything completed for my final report. I'm enjoying being busy though, so while it's a lot of work to complete in a day, I don't feel overly stressed by it.

I was given targets of what was needed from my work, and guidance in completing the experiments, but right now I'm planning all my work and largely being left to my own devices - the only requirement being I complete my targets.

While the specific experimental techniques I've learnt will only be relevant if I end up working in a very similar situation after graduating, the time management, technical writing, presentation skills and general experimental practice will be useful in my final year of university.

I was in a large shared office of seven interns when I started, and currently the setup has differed to four interns and three postdocs. I get on fairly well with the people I've shared an office with, but I tend to spend more time in the laboratory than the office due to the nature of my placement.

Overall, the placement was set up very well. Schlumberger are very much geared up for interns, there's a fairly good induction program and interns are given a fair amount of support. However, a lot of the information we were given beforehand is geared towards the international interns, like how to get a bank account in the UK.

I received one-on-one tuition on specific pieces of experimental techniques, constant feedback on technical reports I'd written and presentations I had to give. I'm being given the opportunity to go to a conference on microfluidics, which is the basis of my work, which is pretty amazing.

There are a lot of former interns now working as research scientists on site, however realistically any future job would be on completion of a PhD, if I want to work on the research side. However, some of the IT interns have been given job offers for different sites, so it depends on your work and your current qualifications.

The number of interns fluctuated between eight, just after Christmas, to 30 now. There's a pretty large social scene, and the majority of us get along really well. Most weekends someone organised a pub trip/BBQ/cinema trip/night out.

Unfortunately, Cambridge is an expensive city to live in and it's very difficult to live cheaply. I was lucky with my housing arrangements and the cost of housing and bills came to around a third of my pay every month, which leaves plenty for food and socialising - although the socialising part wasn't very cheao.

There are plenty of pubs and bars in Cambridge, so going out for a drink was fine. There aren't many clubs, and entry/drinks were expensive. It was always a good night when we went out, it just wasn't very cheap, so we tended just to go to the pub or socialise at people's houses, rather than going out continually.

There's plenty to do in Cambridge. My housemates both go climbing at the local sports centre, and the University of Cambridge allows visiting students to join the societies there at student prices, so I joined the Cambridge Dancer's Club and go dancing three times a week, where I've met plenty of new people, which is great, as living/working/socialising with interns can be a little intense sometimes.