I decided to do a placement in order to get experience as an actual engineer and put the theory into practice. I also wanted insight to decide what kind of career I would enjoy.

I found the company through LinkedIn and whilst they did not have any advertised roles, I reached out via email after looking at the company website.  They are a start-up company so gaining the position was dependent on gaining certain funding.

I was working as a Junior R&D engineer to develop a material for use as a tissue scaffold/dressing for chronic and complex wounds. My daily responsibilities included developing and testing these materials as well as lab management.

My greatest achievement was getting these materials ready for pre-clinical trials and training external stakeholders at the trials in how to use the medical device that delivered these materials. 

The biggest challenge was adapting from an academic mindset in order to meet the expectations of a fast-paced start up company. Also learning to become flexible and take on different roles depending on what needed doing, whilst settling into life in a new city and trying to socialise outside of the lab was difficult. 

My advice is to keep going with applications - it is very tiring facing rejections, but be confident and polite and send out those speculative enquiries!

Besides becoming more technically skilled and starting to understand how engineering businesses work in industry, I have become much more confident in my abilities and realised that I can do things outside of my comfort zone.