Interview with our Summer Intern

We’re joined by Janah, RoukenBio’s Summer Intern. A current student at a local high school, Janah worked in our Operations team alongside our Biophysics Study Manager Dr Louis Julien. The four-week internship is part of the Career Ready program, aiming to develop Janah’s skills, experience, and confidence for her future career. We sat down with Janah and Louis to reflect on her role. 

Internships are dynamic, adaptable roles that allow young people to get a taste of multiple jobs in one sitting. Janah’s internship was split between the lab and the office:

“The first week was spent in the lab shadowing. Then in the second week I was actually able to do more stuff in Scientific Support,” says Janah. “Working with Louis in the Bioanalytics department, I got to work with different machines like the Biacore 8K. I also worked with Quality to review documents.”

Building a scientific skill set

The interdisciplinary nature of the internship meant Janah developed several skills. 

“My communications skills are a lot better! Beforehand I was a very shy person but now I can be a little more out there, talk to people and ask about their careers. People have very different backgrounds at RoukenBio, so it was interesting to hear how everyone ended up in the same spot.” 

Internships also allow young people to experience a level of teamwork beyond that of school. How did Janah find that jump? 

“I enjoyed working with Louis as it was good to have someone to talk to and ask questions,” she says. “The internship involved a lot of science, so people explained different experiments in their own words to help me understand them.”

Was there anything Janah found challenging? “Writing a CV and cover letter. But Louis helped me with that.” 

Deciding your career path can be a daunting, existential task. As a current student, does getting real-life work experience make this decision any easier? It definitely has, says Janah. 

“Originally, I wanted to study medicine at university. The internship has opened more doors for me as I didn’t know what a lab-based job looked like. I’ve got a better idea of alternatives to medicine now,” says Janah.

“I would definitely recommend doing an internship while still at school. It helped me to venture out and get a feel for the opportunities out there.”

Any highlights? “My favourite part was being in the lab. In school, it’s very much theory-based science, so it was cool to see it come to life in the lab.”

Becoming a mentor

So, how did Louis, Study Manager in our Biophysics team find mentoring? 

“Mentoring Janah reminded me of why I enjoy my job”, says Louis. “It’s refreshing to see that spark at the very beginning of your career when everything’s new and shiny. Day to day, its easy to forget that the lab’s quite an exciting workplace!”

“The internship had a good balance between self-learning and hands-on lab experience. Janah was very motivated, and all the team members were happy to work with her. Four weeks is too short!”

Was it challenging to explain scientific projects at a high-school level?

“Our work is so complicated; you need to find ways to explain things simply to people”, says Louis. “We explained complex topics with simple words, like saying cell lyses – breaking cells apart. We also nicknamed our machines and renamed very complicated processes. Conveying complex information to people who don’t know anything about science makes you rethink your project and how you explain it. It’s a skill. I hope that’s what Janah’s learned.”