chemistry summer internships

nicheall

I'm a 3rd year undergrad and I'm hoping someone here could point me in the right direction of applying for summer internships in chemistry labs, more specifically pharmaceutical labs. I have tried doing my own research into companies and feel I'm not looking in the right places, and my university hasn't been great at informing us at opportunity that come up. Work experience through the year is not part of our course but would like to get some experience. Or have i left it too look for something at this stage?

cheers

magneticimpulse

Hi
I started my internship experience after 1st year when P&G came into our college to recruit people. After working there for a summer i wanted to work in the US and applied to alot of companies. I then worked for Roche in California. However they have since closed that site.

Things have changed since i did summer internships..but even when I worked in Roche they had let people go that summer and closed a place in the UK.

I just looked up all pharma companies and sent my CV to all of them. I think most have a deadline sometime in March? I remember having my Roche interview by telephone mid March. Its a great experience. Like you we did not have any work placement as part of my degree...which is crazy because you learn so much. Fair play for looking It definitely stands to you in the long term. It looked great on my CV and helped me get full time jobs after my degree.

The P&G internship was great to work in industry, but Roche was more chemistry research based.

Not sure i can give you much more help. Astrazeneca, Pfizer, GSK, Merck, Lily, Novartis etc all do internships. I found with doing interviews in Astra zeneca that the people applying for jobs were already working there on placement via their University...so that can be a bit disappointing. Oh and UK, Switzerland are the main places in Europe to do Chemistry Research. Most of the US pharma companies have places in Basel.

completenewby

Hi,

I was working in Schering-plough based in Swords, I have a Masters now but I had to work for six months on a placement to get my masters - that's why i was working in Swords.

To give you advice in my opinion the best was is to look at company websites sometimes they might have a continuous improvement project that they will only advertise on their website. Also look at the main job websites like monster, irishjobs.ie, loadzajobs.ie, the irish times website jobs section, berkley. If you are willing to travel to Northern ireland, Almac which is based in Belfast have placements sometimes - check their website. It might sound boring but try FAS too they are bringing a work placement program they might have a placement in a local pharmaceutical company in your area - the only thing is you have to be on the dole for three months so I don't know if this suits.

For some advice about research placements in a uni - look at research profiles on university websites, read the profiles amd if you're interested in someones research email them and ask if they have any placement going. You're a chemist so don't look at just chemistry researchers look at biology researchers - most of their research is interconnected but this depends on the researcher.

That's about all the advice I cangive you I have a degree in Chemistry myself to be honest Chemists are the most equipped to work in pharmaceutical plants especially QC analytical testing, so don't fret!

Hope this helps

magneticimpulse

I didnt fancy working in QC and hence I went abroad to work in Chemistry Research. Dont think I would have been able to handle doing the same thing over and over again.

At least with the research internships, I got to do normal lab stuff like set up reactions, purification of the compound and analysis by LCMS, NMR. My work was then published in a journal, which wasnt bad after 10 week internship.

nicheall

Cheers for the replies, you've both been very helpful, actually able to make some headway now

j4vier

dont limit yourself to just pharma labs

back to a few years ago at least ,you could get summer placements in colleges like dit, the marine institute ,epa and to be honest at undergrad level any type of work experience will look really well on your cv

i know many companies have recruitment freezes so private sector companies might be hard to get into now

check the career sections that each uni/college has on their website