I am now done with my internship work. It is a bit sad because I have really enjoyed it. I have felt very included in the Knowledge Centre while working there. I have learned a lot and am very grateful to the personnel at SIOS for guiding me through this internship.
Especially during my data management work I have utilized my biological knowledge. Both with the understanding of a data set and with working within excel. I have done work on biological data sets in excel before, so I think this have helped me understanding the data set I have been rewriting now. The only skill I feel I was lacking during my internship was coding and the use of python. Then I could have done the rewriting of the data set much more efficiently.
Also during the SESS report workshop I got to utilize some of my biological knowledge. This because the themes discussed there were about earth science at Svalbard. Some were more relevant to biology than others, for example microbiology. But generally, I think my biological knowledge about Svalbard helped me to understand more of the discussions and issues. During this workshop I learned much more about other fields that is highly linked to biology, for example permafrost and snow, which gave me a broader perspective on biological matters and new biological knowledge.
I have acquired many new skills during this workshop. I have now been doing much logistical work, with planning a big workshop. I have also learned more about social media, with web-page coding, creation of a Facebook page and making subtitles to a youtube video.
During this internship, I have learned that a biologist’s role in the society can be very different. At the Knowledge Centre several biologists work, but they have completely different work tasks, some not very relevant to biology. But I think rather than the specific knowledge you learn during the education, other thing like communication, reading up on a new theme and being flexible might be just as important.
Before my internship I expected it to be a bit more biology-related work. But I am happy with my outcome even though, because I got many transferable skills I probably can utilize in later jobs. I did not expect to be as included and to get to take as big a part of SIOS as I did. They gave me a lot of responsibility, which was a bit scary in case I would do something wrong, but it all worked out and I am happy I got to show that I could do important tasks like planning the workshop, even though I don’t have much work experience from before.
Thank you to SIOS for having me, I have learned a lot!
