Inspiring the Next Generation of Scientists

Last week, one of our experienced graduate protein scientists, Naimah Begum, was asked to be a panellist at a plenary session held for over 200 students, organised by Manchester University’s Biological Science department. The aim of the plenary was to help students grasp how to articulate their skills and experiences to employers, whether on their CV or at interview.

As a panellist, Naimah was asked to share her thoughts on the skills she had developed while working at Peak Proteins and the skills needed to work in a scientific lab scientist role in industry. Her fellow panellists included a PhD student at Manchester University and a Cambridge graduate who was now working in data processing for the NHS.

We caught up with Naimah this week and asked what it was like being a panellist at this event.

“Well, having expected around 30-40 students to turn up, I was amazed to see over 200 students there so initially it felt really daunting, but I was able to describe to the students what the key transferable skills were that I have developed while working at Peak Proteins. It really made me think about what I did day-to-day and highlighted that good team-working and communication are as important in my job as the specific, laboratory skills. Ensuring that we collaborate well within the team and that everyone is on the same page as to what needs to be done is really important. I also thought that for me personally, developing commercial awareness was also a valuable, transferable skill for the future and something that you can only really get working in industry. I’m much more mindful of what I do, how much it costs for me to do the work and ultimately the cost to the customer. Therefore, everything we do is for a specific purpose or to answer a key question that the client has,” said Naimah.

“I was asked some interesting questions by the students such as, what questions was I asked at my job interview and how did I get some lab experience. I explained hat I had done an internship at the end of my second year which gave me valuable, relevant experiences that I could talk about at the interview. I was also asked about using LinkedIn and how to build up a network of contacts.”

Would you do this again Naimah we asked?  “I’m part of the Manchester University Alumni email group so I did volunteer to help out at events and while I was initially daunted at the number of students there, I was really glad I did it. It really made me appreciated how far I have progressed my own skills since leaving university was happy to pass that experience on, and hopefully help other students on their journey” said Naimah “and I even got my own volunteer badge!”