Travelling the world with Evonik – My Experience in Taiwan

Hi,

my name is Lauren and I am studying Chemical Engineering at Loughborough University in England. I have completed two years of my degree so far, and thus decided to take a year off to gain some work experience and do an internship. Since last year, I am also part of a networking program called UNITECH, which actually gave me already the opportunity to study at another European University for one semester and which now made possible the internship at one of Unitech’s partner companies – Evonik. 

If you want to know more about UNITECH’s program and Evonik, take a closer look at my blog on networks@Evonik. Here, I tell you more about the program and about the involvement of Evonik. 

For my six-month internship, I first spent three months in Germany with the Life Cycle Management team in Hanau, where I worked on completing Life Cycle Assessments to measure the environmental impact of Evonik’s products and production processes. Then, I completed my internship at Evonik’s Taipei office in Taiwan. This internship focused on market intelligence and business development, which was a big change from what I have learned so far but also a great challenge.

Evonik’s Business Development department in Taipei has many employees, but only a small part of it works in one office. It is an open plan office and I loved the working atmosphere there. Since everyone is sitting closely together, communication becomes easy. I can always ask for help with anything at any time. My main task within the team was to complete desktop market research, specifically related to the 5G market. Additionally, I completed other tasks on an adhoc basis such as creating so-called ‘flows’ with Microsoft Flow, so that tasks which are usually manually completed by HR, can instead be computerised to run automatically without the need for human input. This saves people a lot of time and effort. I enjoyed both projects and it was amazing to see how much I could learn from those around me.

My colleagues were truly great people, not only did they help me at work but they also encouraged me to experience Taiwanese culture and food. Life in Taiwan was very different to my experiences so far in Europe and, when I first arrived, I took some time to adjust to the culture and lifestyle, especially the food. Let me tell you one thing, Taiwanese food is delicious and my colleagues gave me a lot of good recommendations about the best restaurants and places to travel around Taiwan and Asia. There is so much to do and many unique places to see: from the excitement of a busy city in Taipei with night markets and tourist attractions to beautiful beaches, temples and mountains for hiking. 

Taiwan is truly beautiful and my internship was and will always remain a wonderful experience for me. An internship in general is such a wonderful experience and opportunity to not only gain work experience but to also find out what possibilities there are out there for all the things you have learned during your studies. You get the chance to meet new people, to learn and to experience new cultures and languages but only, if you are willing to step outside of your comfort zone. I encourage everyone to try something new. Whether it means working or living in a different town, country or even continent, getting out of your comfort zone will bring so many opportunities. You will definitely not regret it.

See you, 

Your Lauren

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