17 November 2005

International Placements with IAESTE

IAESTE - The International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience

IAESTE is an organisation that organises placements in countries all over the world; today there are 85 member countries. In the United Kingdom IAESTE is run by the British Council and they offer short and long term placements working abroad for companies and academic institutes.

The aim of IAESTE is to provide degree level students of science, engineering and applied arts with related overseas training. The placements are usually given to students in their penultimate year of study. However others may be accepted. It should be noted that these placements are not open to first year students due to the level of knowledge required by the employers.

The type of person IAESTE are looking for is someone who is adventurous, enthusiastic and interested in other cultures, this is not a normal summer job. You will be living and working abroad, there are some exotic locations such as Mongolia, Tajikistan and Peru, as well as places such as Canada and Switzerland.

As part of my IAESTE placement I stayed in Copenhagen, Denmark, working for the pharmaceutical company LEO Pharma. I was living in the centre of Copenhagen. It was a very exciting experience as I learned a lot about the Danish culture and people. I would never have been able to see as much if I had only visited on holiday.

Working for LEO Pharma was an amazing experience, I spent every day working in an organic laboratory working on various projects. The main area of research I conducted was devising a method of making one of their main products, One-Alpha®, traceable in the human body by attaching a radioactive isotope to it. This required production of a specific reagent to perform a stereospecific reaction as only one isomer of the product is active and therefore desired. I also worked on syntheses of specific chemicals as possible new drug candidates. Although the job was challenging I found some interesting results and my research was successful enough that a paper will be written on the basis of my results and further research.

Being on an IAESTE placement means that you get a lot of support from your host country and this includes finding accommodation and organisation of a summer programme. Whilst in Denmark I met many people from all over the world who had travelled there on IAESTE placements. It opened my eyes to so many new things, there was a vast mixture of cultures and experiences in the group, but we all got on so well. I now have a network of friends from every continent in the world except Antarctica and I hope to visit all of them at some time.

IAESTE Denmark set up a range of events for us over the summer period and these included a cycling trip to the island of Borneholm and the Copenhagen Get Together, where 200 IAESTE students met for a 3-day party. As well as a trip to see the England vs. Denmark football match, no need to remind you of the result, the trainees organised weekend trips. I saw a lot of Denmark and even visited Stockholm, Sweden for a weekend.

I had an amazing time in Denmark and it is without a doubt the best experience of my life so far. Do you think you are up to the challenge? Why not apply on the web site: www.iaeste.org.uk. The closing date for applications is 10 December 2005.


James Birbeck
4th Year Chemical Engineering and Chemistry Undergraduate