Hey folks, Chris McGuire here. For those of you that don’t know, I am the Saltire Intern for General Electric in Holland working as a steam chemistry commissioning engineer. I have now reached the halfway point of my time here and I thought I would start this week’s blog with a little personal reflection of my time here so far before I tell you about the past seven days’ adventures. This going to kind of be like your favourite TV show (like Mock The Week or something) broadcasting those annoying ‘best of so far’ clip show episodes half way through the season.
The experience so far has definitely been life changing and I’m not just saying this to make it sound like I’m having a good time. I seriously feel like I have matured drastically over the last month: learning to become totally independent; living on my own in a new country. I have lived in a flat before but that was in Edinburgh with one of my friends. This is totally different, the deep end you might say, with nobody here to hold my hand. Interestingly, the ‘culture shock’ stages in the Saltire Foundation pack were pretty bang on and I can happily say I have got through them all without many problems.
One of the positives of this ‘learning to be independent thing’ is I feel my self confidence in general has seen an overall ascension through my travels of sightseeing in The Netherlands and Belgium as well as engaging in foreign languages; having French friends at work and the Dutch in public situations means a big improvement in the French language.. On the subject of friends, the guys and gals in the team have been more warm and welcoming than I could ever have expected and I like to think this is due to a combination of these dudes being awesome and my own outgoing Scottish friendliness
As for the job itself, I now understand what people mean when they say “When you leave Uni, forget everything you know” as when you get the chance to work in a proper working environment you realise how little you actually know about the same subject you have been studying for four years. Let’s just say University is like the stabilisers on your first bike - they help you learn the basics but eventually they have to come off and it’s never the same after that point. This internship has proven to be a small taste of the feeling that I hope to indeed experience again after (if? lol) I graduate next year. Regardless of the engineering background of the work, my general work ethic has improved drastically too. The long hours and early starts have required good discipline, planning and preparation. Not having a car has also been interesting. Indeed, I believe the experience has made me more appreciative of the comforts I sometimes take for granted back home.
Anyway, enough of the mushy self-realisation spiel for now. The important thing is that I wrote ‘lol’ in a blog. Roll on the next four weeks of Holland-ness!
Chris x