So for my first week of work experience, my uncle managed to get me into where he works, Bristol Myers-Squibb Swords. BMS area global bio-pharma company from America. In BMS Swords, they focus on making the active-live ingredients of a variety of drugs such as Taxol - Paclitaxel is a drug used to treat ovarian, breast, lung, pancreatic and other cancers. Daclatasvir - used to treat hepatitis c. Apixban – a drug used to prevent blood clotting.
While working here I worked in a variety of different sectors such as the Quality Control Labs, the Microbiology Quality Control Labs, Medical Technology Labs, and the Manufacturing Factory.
Due to Swords being very far away from where I live, I crashed in at my nannies, she lives in Whitehall so every morning I’d wake about 6:55am,; be on the 41C for 7:35, which would have me at Swords for 8:25.
Every morning I’d sign in at the security desk and hand in my phone (radiation released from phones are enough to blow up the whole factory), I’d then head to the cafeteria and grab a cup of tea before I headed up to start my shift. Every morning I’d assemble at the P6 Labs in the admin area. Luckily for me, two other TY’s were doing work experience with me, and I can tell you now that they were honestly life-savers, without them I would’ve been bored out of my tree. One was a girl from Loreto Beafourt, the other was a guy from Rathoath Community College. Every morning we’d assemble here and our supervisor would tell us where to go.
Every morning there was an hour long breakfast break, all employees are from 10-11 required to stop all work and make sure they get a good breakfast.
We also had a lunch break every day from 12-1. The cantine was really really good and really really cheap. Full dinner for €1.70, full irish breakfast for 70c.
On Monday we spent the day in the Microbiology labs of BMS Swords, we shadowed him as he carried out a variety of tests to ensure that the High Quality Water didn’t have large amounts of micro-organisms, this is because the HQW is very important in the manufacturing of the ALI (active-live ingredients). The Microbiologist was really sound and we spent the day talking about everything from the job to college life.
On Tuesday and Friday we spent the day with two Quality Control Analysts in P6 Quality Control Labs, their job was to test every single chemical and substance that’s used in the manufacturing of the active-live-ingredient to ensure that there were no abnormalities or impurities in the solvents and liquids, this is really important because the active live ingredients will be used in medicines to give to patients and if something went wrong there would be murder. I thought that it was really interesting to see them carry out all the different testing but tbh it was boring from time to time, a lot of paperwork was involved so there was a lot of sitting around waiting for something else to do. That’s where the other two TY’S came in handy; we just spent the spare time swinging around in the chair talking. They were good craic. The best part about working in the labs was wearing the lab coats to be honest haha.
Wednesday we spent the day with Chemical Engineers in the P7 Manufacturing Plant. Here they showed us how they actually make the ALI in the vats and the various methods they do to do it. It was really cool to see how it all works but I definitely would not like a career in the field. The work is a bit monotonous.
Thursday we spent the day with an Electrical & Instrumental Engineer, with him we went around the various plants and he showed us the various fuse boards, electrical systems and machinery, his job was to ensure they’re all being maintained well. I definitely would not like to carry out a career in this field, I don’t have interest in engineering or electricals.
On Friday we spent our last day in the P6 Quality Control Labs, we watched them carry out more tests such as the CVC-6, bottle rinse, GC-6 and others. On our last day we finished early, I was happy to be finished but also sad because I had made two friends who I probably won’t see for a very long time unless I bump into them somewhere.
So after this work experience I can conclude I enjoyed it as:
I love chemistry
I love meeting new people
The company is a fantastic company to work for with lots of perks
I know I’ll definitely be taking chemistry as a subject at Leaving Cert level and would consider a career in chemistry however not in the quality control labs as the work is monotonous.
