It started with the desire to gain insight on possible career paths I can explore after graduation. I was so excited to get the offer to be a scientific intern at the Institute of Food Science and Technology IFST for 12 weeks. This experience has been a great professional development opportunity for me. The team gave me a very warm welcome on my first day and although I worked remotely, I felt connected to them. Through one-on-one meetings and open conversations about their career journey, I have learned a lot about professionalism, communication, and leadership. I have learned to be more accountable by consciously reflecting on highlights of past events while looking forward to the activities ahead.
IFST organises a few student events every year and the Student LaunchPad is one of such events. The opportunity to interact with students from other universities and get coaching from industry mentors on useful skills, behaviours and knowledge required to excel in this industry was a major highlight of this year’s event. We also visited the National Centre for Excellence in Food Engineering. Also, the Food Safety Conference organised by NewFood is another great event I had the privilege to join. Although remotely, I got to listen to panels discuss and debate on issues, network online, and make LinkedIn connections. Participating in these events and getting to know other people’s career journeys was motivating.
In my second week, I was thrilled to meet the IFST Scientific Committee and understand the important role they play in resource development. I received immense support and guidance from them on the technical resources I worked on. I remember a question I asked when I was being interviewed for this role was, ‘will I get to write an article in the course of my internship?’. Yes! I got to work on a Food Science Fact Sheet with a working group of industry professionals. This task challenged me because the writing style was a bit different from the academic writing I did at the university. Nevertheless, I enjoyed every bit of it and the satisfaction of seeing the final draft is fulfilling.
Working on the Food Processing Knowledge hub has helped me appreciate organisations like IFST who provide and share reliable evidence-based knowledge resources to support individuals from a wide range of backgrounds including students, consumers, and food science professionals I was involved in planning the project, searching for and collating relevant links to set up the hub. The working group on this project and IFST networks were very supportive. While working on this project, I read a lot of resources and watched a lot of informative videos on different aspects of food processing, some of which were unfamiliar at the time.
Overall, I believe I had the best internship experience here at IFST. I worked on challenging tasks that helped me learn new things and improve my writing and communication skills. I want to appreciate the team at IFST for their support throughout my time here. Special thanks to Tim (Chief Executive), and my manager Natasha (Senior Scientific Affairs Manager) who always encouraged me to enjoy my time and grow my network. Guess what…. I did!
Adaeze Okafor- IFST Scientific Intern (Sep-Dec 2022)