Marília – Femtec Intern in ESHQ

Hi!

I am Marília - born and raised in Northeast Brazil, near the coast and nature. I am currently studying the Ms. Sc. Air Quality Control, Solid Waste, and Wastewater Process Engineering at the University of Stuttgart.

To share a bit of my journey, I graduated in civil engineering aiming to design sustainable constructions and decrease the impact on the environment, mainly in water and wastewater sustainable systems. To follow up my goal, I decided to go deeper in the topic coming to my master program here in Germany. I didn’t know Evonik, until the moment I was awarded for the FEMTEC scholarship - a network to connect, empower and inspire females in STEM.

After the initial contact, I still had questions in my mind that made me hesitate to search more about Evonik, as:

“Do I have the potential to work in such a renomated company?”

“My first background is civil engineering. Would they see me as a potential employee?”

 “I am just starting my deeper studies in the environmental area, how can I contribute with them?”

Today I know that these questions were unfounded.

The team I work with at the company values my potential, commitment, and soft skills!

The moment I am writing this article I am in my last weeks at Evonik, and I am quite upset, I have to say. During my 5 months at the company, I built solid bonds with my colleagues, and I am pretty sure this is what I will miss most from my daily work. To start with, I had the pleasure to have a singular supervisor, who taught me about life, work, values and to always be myself. I cannot describe how enriching it was, to have such an amazing person to guide me. On top of that, I was able to learn so much from my colleagues! They involved me in exciting tasks and taught me a lot.
My first task was to develop the Water Policy of the company. The teamwork was so strong that, in those 5 moths, we were able to do much more. We are in our final steps to conclude the Climate Change, Circular Economy, Biodiversity and Product Stewardship Policies.

Maybe you think that this was my internship highlight, right?! But not!

From the beginning of my internship, I thought I knew what field I wanted to work in in the future. As already mentioned, I had a great supervisor. During the last two weeks of my internship, he made it possible for me to get insights in this much-dreamed-of work. And guess what?

I realized that wasn't true! The tasks didn't excite me as much as I had hoped. Now I understand that I am already doing the work that I want to do in the future: It’s the work of the Environment, Safety, Health and Quality team.

Now that you've gotten some insights into my time at Evonik, I’d like to give you some advice:

I don't know what your background is or where you're from, but what I can say is that there are companies and teams that can see potential in you that you're not yet aware of; that goes beyond your resume.

Evonik recognized that about me, and I'm glad for the experience I had there!

Best regards,

Marília

On the students@Evonik blog, students, who work at Evonik, share their experiences about life and work in the company.