Reflections on internship experiences

After finishing their first-year exams, the 2025 EACH cohort put their knowledge into practice through summer internships. Below are some students’ reflections on their internship experiences.

Stefanie: My internship at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam (Germany) was a truly valuable experience. I worked with water, soil, bedrock and river sand samples for geochemical and cosmogenic nuclide research, gaining hands on experience in sample preparation, mineral separation, chemical treatment and further instrumental analysis. 

One of the most valuable parts of my internship was the opportunity to work with and learn from experts from different scientific fields and nationalities. Being part of such an international and multidisciplinary environment helped me develop not only my laboratory and analytical skills but also my communication, teamwork and coordination skills.

I am very grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Romano Clementucci and the whole GFZ team for their guidance, patience, and support and for making me feel welcome throughout my internship. I will carry the knowledge, skills and experiences I gained at GFZ with me as I continue my studies and future career.  

Ayesha: My internship at Renotech Oy in Turku (Finland) was a very rewarding experience and an opportunity to explore a field that was completely new to me. My project focused on developing foamed lightweight aggregates from steel slag waste, which introduced me to material science and sustainable materials research for the first time. 

Throughout the internship, I was involved in preparing different mixtures, carrying out experiments, and evaluating the properties of the materials. I particularly enjoyed seeing how changes in the materials and processing conditions could affect the results. Since this was outside my previous experience, there was a lot to learn, but that was also what made the experience exciting and challenging. 

Working with my team in an industrial environment gave me a different perspective on research and showed me how scientific knowledge can be applied to real-world sustainability challenges. Overall, this internship pushed me out of my comfort zone, helped me learn a completely new area, and gave me an experience that I will carry. 

Hanna: After passing all my exams in June, I completed an internship at the Estonian Environmental Research Center’s Tartu (Estonia) laboratory. I spent 3 weeks working with environmental samples such as water and soil. 

The main part of my internship was focused on elemental analysis using techniques such as ICP-MS, ICP-OES, mercury determination by AAS, and fluorescence measurement. I was involved in different stages of the analytical process, including sample preparation, instrument operation, and data evaluation. This experience helped me better understand how these instrumental analyses are applied in routine laboratory work and environmental analysis. In addition, I participated in preparing water samples for the determination of phenols by HPLC-ECD. This experience broadened my knowledge of environmental analytical chemistry and gave me practical insight into determining organic contaminants in water samples. 

I am very grateful for this experience, not only for the professional skills I gained but also for the opportunity to work with kind and inspiring people.  

Javier: During my bachelor’s thesis, I worked with pesticide analysis, and after starting my master’s degree, I thought it would be a good time to contact the researchers whose work had inspired me through my undergraduate studies. I had the opportunity to carry out my internship at CVUA-Stuttgart in Germany, a governmental laboratory focused on the chemical analysis and surveillance of food products, where I worked in the pesticide department. 

For me, this experience was a dream come true. During the first days of my internship, I focused on learning how the laboratory operated, and I was most amazed by its organization and celerity. Through the internship I was able to participate in hundreds of sample extractions and to work with different brands of chromatographic and mass spectrometric instruments. At the same time, I always felt surrounded by extremely knowledgeable and friendly people. 

I’m very grateful to the University of Tartu and the European Union for providing me with the financial support to make this internship possible. As well as giving me the academic foundation to allow me to appreciate the quality systems used in such a laboratory. I’m also deeply grateful to everyone at CVUA-Stuttgart for all the time and training they provided me with. 

Jan-Luca: I completed my internship with the Forensic Science Research Group at Keele University (the UK) – Forensic Science under the supervision of David Thompson.  

Previously, we encountered his teaching during the first semester of our master’s degree, when some of us attended his lectures on “Introduction to Forensic Analysis “. I found the course so engaging and inspiring that I decided to pursue my internship within his research team. 

During my time at Keele, I gained valuable insight into forensic work procedures, their connection to analytical chemistry, and the group’s ongoing research. The team is currently working on projects covering for example the identification of insect-derived compounds, complex food fraud but also post-mortem interval estimations in forensic entomology. I personally had the chance to contribute directly to a project on counterfeit cigarette detection by performing untargeted biomarker profiling across different tobacco types using LC-QTOF-MS and comparing the results through multivariate statistical analysis.