STAFF SEARCH
Experience of an internship with the Epidemiology Group
We are three undergraduate Public Health students from Bremen, Germany and we undertook the internship at the epidemiology group in Aberdeen from October 2011 until March 2012 as a part of our study. Because of the co-operation between the University of Aberdeen and Bremen we found the contact and applied for a vacancy. A telephone interview gave us the chance to introduce ourselves and to become acquainted with the head of the group. After getting a positive response we were offered a contact with a previous intern who gave us helpful tips with regard to how to find accommodations or necessary preparations in advance.
The internship was unpaid, but we got support from Erasmus, which helped us to finance our stay in Aberdeen. For the sixth month period every one of us had his or her own supervisor and worked with them on different research projects. Tanja belonged to the Dental School and worked in the field of oral health. Viktor was based in the Maternity Hospital doing research on reproductive health, while Stephan worked in the Polwarth Building in the field of musculoskeletal epidemiology. In addition to regular meetings with our supervisors to discuss the progress of our work, we could contact them for any questions or problems that occurred. Our main tasks during the internship were to conduct literature searches, to enter and analyse study data and to write a paper about our projects. Furthermore, we gave presentations about our work in front of the other members of the group. There was always a friendly working atmosphere, with weekly cake meetings of the whole epidemiology group. Apart from that, we got the opportunity to join regular seminars given by international research scientists and to attend training sessions for PhD students. All this made us feel as fully valid members of the group at any time during our internships.
Living in Aberdeen was great. The friendly and open minded Scottish people made the integration simple. Especially the contact to previous intern and the PhD students helped us to settle in. Aberdeen has a busy city center with shopping streets and restaurants and together with the huge number of the different pubs it offers a lot of opportunities to get in touch with the Scottish people and other international students. Additionally, there are a lot of facilities to follow sport activities either in a gym or in some of the sport clubs of Aberdeen. We also had annual leave for travelling and sightseeing in Scotland. We visited the most important cities and castles and enjoyed the unique landscape of the highlands. We even had a chance to visit our family during the Christmas holidays.
The internship at the epidemiology group was a great experience for all of us and a big step for our study and further career. It enabled us to gain an insight into the epidemiology research and gave us the opportunity to improve our intercultural skills and English knowledge. A special benefit was our first publication which resulted from our research projects. We are happy that the epidemiology group has given us the chance to join them for our internship and are very grateful for the time we have worked there.
Stephan Schild von Spannenberg, Viktor Hardock and Tanja Wirth
April 2012