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Outstanding Interns 2015

Over the summer, The Ogden Trust funded 44 internship placements at 26 institutions, companies and organisations. The scheme is growing every year; in 2015 alone, the number of placements has almost doubled since 2014.

Thirty-three of the internships in 2015 were research placements; 10 were in the commercial sector; a further 10 were Œcreate-your-own¹ internships devised and agreed by the intern in collaboration with their host organisation, and the final placement was our first ever outreach internship. Such was the quality of the interns, that this year we have made two Outstanding Intern Awards:

Abidul Hoque was an intern at the University of Southampton. He was working on the development of a physicsundergraduate teaching laboratory experiment. ³The aims of the internship were to develop the experimental setup of a mini-project for undergraduate students to learn about PID controllers based around the NI ELVIS II system,² explains Abidul, ³and to develop a customized printed circuit board for the NI ELVIS II and finally to write up a project report.² ³I wanted to do this internship because I saw it as a great opportunity to improve my skills both on a personal and academic level and hopefully I can use it as a guide to help me decide what to do in the future."

³What I obtained from this internship exceeded my expectations ... I am glad that I really got stuck in, and kept my mind open knowing that at the end of the internship I would be able to meet my aims. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Southampton during the internship!² The contribution made by Abidul was recognised in the judging process for the outstanding intern award, Dr Alison Rivett, Ogden Consultant and Regional Representative, and one of this year¹s judges had this to say:

³Abidul took on something completely outside his comfort zone, having not originally applied for that project. He has obviously developed lots of different skills, both practical and transferable and impressed his supervisor with the high standard of his work and ability to work independently. His reflective diary shows clearly how much he got out of it and he is very self-aware and honest in his assessment of what he has gained from the placement. He has also produced something which will be used for undergraduate teaching laboratories, which is a particularly valuable contribution that will hopefully have a positive impact on many students in the future.

Fri 22 Jan 2016, 14:44 | Tags: Undergraduates, Awards, Faculty of Science