S1 Ep 3: Undergraduate Chemistry Explained with Ewelina Chmielak

Ewelina gives advice and tips on CV writing and putting your best foot forward when applying to jobs. Awaiting graduation from her undergraduate degree, Ewelina is continuing her studies into a taught masters programme in Dublin. This episode is a must-listen for any prospective chemistry student, undergrad student or anyone looking to further their studies in chemistry on completing their undergraduate degree!

Transcript

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Hello, everyone and welcome to Episode Three of the podcast. Today I'm going to be speaking with Evelina, who has just completed her final year of her undergraduate degree in chemistry with forensic science. Just like Malvina has in our last episode, it's a great opportunity to compare and contrast two different people's perspective and viewpoint on the same course, and how they are going to develop skills in the next step of their careers. Evelina is going to go into a master's in September, and she has some fantastic tips on CVS, on applying for jobs and so many more insights into just College in general. So anyone who is looking to go into undergrad or someone who's an undergrad currently in chemistry, there's so many useful tips in this episode for you guys. Welcome to the podcast, Ewelina. How are you? Thanks for having me. I'm good. How are you? Brilliant, delighted to have my second guest on the show. First question I'm going to ask you today is What is your definition of success. So that could be in your career and your personal life together, whichever way you see it. So I think just in general, being successful means achieving set goals, whether it's academic or personal, they can be whatever they want to be. But I think it's important to, you know, have a feeling of satisfaction with all those goals, whether and you know, in the process of achieving them, or once you achieve them, you have to be happy with them. Because I don't think, you know, I don't think you're successful if you're not happy with what it is that you've achieved, or with the path that you took to achieve your goals. So that to me is kind of the definition of success. Very good. So it's kind of like a mixture of both that you won't be happy in your career unless you have that your personal life and you will be having your personal life unless you have in your career. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Like imagine achieving a goal and not being happy with it. You know, like, that's just not success in my eyes. Why don't you take us through your career journey for when you're in school until now that you finished your undergraduate degree growing up, I never really knew on what I wanted to do in my life, your friends. You know, in primary school, they just know they want to be a doctor, they know they want to be a teacher, they know they want to be x, y, and Zed. I never knew what I wanted to be fours. I kind of hesitated for a little while I was like, well, maybe I'll be a T shirt. Because, you know, I know Sasha is going to be a teacher, you know, maybe I'll be a doctor. But I never had set plans for myself. And I just kind of went to school for the craft of going to school, you know, meeting friends, I actually enjoyed the learning aspect, and you know, the education as well. And it was a bit of an urge to be honest, but I did like school and I did enjoy, you know, my sciences, like I'm just remember loving, you know, the sciences and maths I adored. So I kind of, I didn't know at the time, that that would be my path for the future. But, you know, my mom and my brother kind of knew I'd be into the same kind of aspect of I suppose education. Funny enough, I went to secondary school then. And I really loved science because I don't really think you do much. You know, much science in primary school. I didn't do much science in primary school anyway, which I thought it was a bit weird. We do a lot of the artsy subjects. science isn't really it's not really taught. Maybe it's changed out. I know, it's definitely changed now. Because I have cousins in primary school, and they definitely do way more science subjects than I did. We never had physics never had we had like biology and stuff. Physics, I suppose we had as well. We never had chemistry. I do not remember being introduced to chemistry until first year Secondary School, which I think is I think it's a bit sad. Like, I think we should just be introduced to it a bit earlier, obviously, at an appropriate level. Do you know, but even smaller experiments should be done? I think even like, I know, you're taught about pH and stuff, even like experiments, you know, about PhDs and stuff, which are important and do carry through. I think they should have been done. I don't change now. But at the time, I don't remember doing any science in primary school. Yeah, I suppose maybe it was relying on the background, your teacher and now so many problems. good teachers have previous degrees. Like I'm sure there's loads of private school teachers that have science degrees and have now gone to do Hibernia or something, and I know actually Prime Minister DJs so maybe that will change and the curriculum probably already has changed that you will get more science and chemistry. I'd say you're right because I suppose you know, primary school teaching it is a case of the teacher focusing on what they specialise in. So you always have like the one that pushes you in maths or the one that pushes you in English like growing up and looking back on primary school. You know, I can literally pinpoints what each teacher prefers to teach. Do you know and so I'd say you're right, I just maybe I was just unlucky. And you know, none of the teachers in my school did well, none of the teachers that taught me and had a scientific background, but I wasn't really introduced to, to science until, you know, I went into first shoe secondary school. And I did the first three years, obviously, for your junior Sir, I did love science. Now I was I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. Still compared Yeah, I didn't do try tried, because I just didn't really want to do ti. And I decided just to go straight into fifth year. But at that point, I wasn't sure exactly where I wanted to go at the end of leaving search, choose my objects for I suppose the Leaving Cert was a bit difficult, like I knew I loved the sciences, but I didn't want to limit myself just to the sciences, biology, chemistry and physics. Although I wanted to do the three I and I enjoyed, I was quite, I want to think I was sensible in, in my subject choice at the time, because I ended up doing biology, chemistry and accounting, because I loved maths, I loved numbers. I loved on that side part accounting was, you know, a little bit of added that bit of balance to all the subjects I was doing. I did that ended up for the my co with majority scientific courses. I don't think I had any, I had no business subjects are not no business courses on it whatsoever. It was all kind of science. Yeah, it was all kind of science. Now, I did know that I loved chemistry and biology, those two, were my favourite subjects by five. Oh, that is a lie. I did have one eight, I had one ASC course. And that was word languages, which is completely contradictory to everything I did. Because I'm polish. So I grew up I'm bilingual in English and polish. Love the two languages I wasn't, you know, I didn't find them very hard to learn. I loved Irish as well, in school. Irish is my best subject and my best grade, it was just hired to the site. So I knew and I loved the languages. I did French as well, in school, and I loved languages. So I had that on one side. And then on the other side as the sciences that I was like, and yeah, well, you for languages and for sciences, I suppose in a sense. Yeah, matter? Yeah. So I was an in biology and chemistry. Absolutely. So it was really, it was really hard to decide then and there because, you know, I only had the one it was this G word languages and UCC. And I was battling whether to put it first or second, because they're very similar in in points, do you know the year before? So I really didn't know what to do. But I kind of sat down I was like, Oh, do I, you know, looking at, I suppose career prospects from each course I was like, if I did word languages, I could be a certain amount of things like I could, you know, go into certain amount of careers, which didn't necessarily appeal to me, the one I would have considered at the time would have been just secondary school education, like teaching in a secondary school, I wasn't 100% on it, so I didn't want to risk it. Then when it came to the sciences, I realised I can actually also be a teacher of a subject I genuinely enjoy. And actually, I'm passionate, you know, biology and chemistry, were the only subjects I Janie enjoyed, go into class and always had my homework done. And, you know, I was so prepared for the classes. So that was kind of a giveaway almost, that they should be going that direction, I suppose. Well, you know, I look at the career prospects as like there was so there just seemed so many more interesting things to be done with this. I disagree. In my head anyway, they just seem to be so many different career paths that I could have taken and train so many different directions. The fact that there are more prospects there, I think kind of nudged me that direction. So I decided to go with science in the end. Well, at least you know, you've made the right choice for you. And I do think it's important that people know that whenever you have a degree there is room there to change your mind. Now with your degree, you can go and do languages, if that's what you actually want to do, or like even a level nine in languages, as opposed to going back to do a degree again, and you can retrain more openly once you've reached that level. If so, that would be an honours degree. And it's actually it's funny enough that you say it now but you know, having the background of languages it's so important even in a scientific job very recently, I submitted a CV to a job in Galway. Now it wasn't it wasn't stated what they were looking for. Exactly. It was just kind of an open job, you know, a lab analyst role, whatever. But they rang me and they're like, Oh, we had your CV on flight. And I was like, this was a while ago. You know, I expected them just have already hired Someone, but they're like, No, we have had your CV on file. And there's actually a position that popped up in our company that requires a scientific background with the edge of two European languages. Now, I had, you know, eight polish and French, little French very bad, not the best at French. Now, let's be real boss. Do you know the required two sides of languages are French and polish on my CV? Because I did you know, I can speak in French. And we actually speak in French here in the house because the girls talk French, but they actually rang me and they're like, Oh, yeah, we're looking for someone to with, you know, knowledge of two European languages, like they didn't specify they said, One preferably fluency. The other relatively God's communicative a sports. And I was literally like that job was written for me also, to put that stuff on your CV, because people just forget to put that there. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I didn't have it on my CV for ages until I went to one of the career guidance. Ladies new CC, I didn't specify those actually bilingual, they only had the scientific ones down. And you know, English, because that's the language you use here. It's so important. Just to put the little details down, I genuinely thought it wouldn't make a difference. But it obviously did, because they literally specified languages in a scientific role. Yeah, you wouldn't really think of it. But also, it makes so much sense with CVS and stuff like that, you just have to play smart, and just be smart what you put out there. Because you know, it might necessarily be something special in your eyes. But it's important to voice it regardless, completely. And they think CDs are so worth the time and energy that you're to invest. Like it is an investment of time. And I do think especially when we're younger, and we're getting part time jobs, we just like throw them in wherever we can, and we put everything we can onto that two pages and make the right thing as small as possible. And it's just horrible to read. And then when we get older, I don't think we give it enough time to say we need to change our viewpoint and how to structure a CV and how the CV works that you need to be super selective, and then link it to your LinkedIn profile. And that has everything. So I think that's such good advice, CV wise to like, think critically about even your time in school, and how it could affect your future career. Because putting your languages on could have gotten you a job, which is such a huge thing, especially in the industry of chemistry and pharma. It's such a competitive industry. And while there's always jobs going, there's always loads of people looking for those jobs, too. Yeah, absolutely. And there's so many skills you can transfer even from secondary school. Like I remember writing my first CV, I didn't know what to put down without thinking about it. Now I'm like, there are so many skills I learned just from attending secondary school that I could easily put down, but I never did at the time, like organisation time management, like they're all so so important. meeting deadlines, like you have to hand in your homework. Otherwise, you're penalised. It's still missing a deadline, it might need to be rear centred one or a work centred one. But it is so sort of and so I think it's really important. You really just have to be smart with how you phrase things. There's so many transferable skills and skills coming in from secondary school to college to work that thinking about now I'm like, my CV at the time was horrendous. You know, it was so plain, it was just so vague. I could have put a little bit more thought into it kind of put down whatever my grades were in school, or whatever I got into even sex but there were skills they had acquired all along, they just completely forgot to mention and forgot to mention, probably could have gotten more job offers or more interviews or whatever, it was hot, I put them down because they are things we learn as we grow up. But they're not necessarily things that you start learning once you finish school. Yeah, that's fantastic advice. transferable skills is something that we only think about whenever we're looking for a real life career. And then we start thinking back, but it is something we should be doing the whole time, even when we're looking for part time jobs or going to college. It's so important. And I think another thing just on CBS and we're talking about CVS is your actual own interests still just put in that you're an avid reader everyone is putting that day on but if you volunteer in some like tiny little charity, or you have kind of an unusual interest, like you surf or something like that, it's so valuable that it looks genuine. Even if you are an avid reader that just looks like you pulled it from the CDs off the internet. This really I noticed in any job interviews I had it so important to give a bit of you and tell them more about yourself because a lot of the times you know people don't want to hire someone they're not going to get on with people don't want to hire someone who doesn't start up a conversation or doesn't have something to talk about because you know work is work but it's also important to have someone to you know, connect with at work. So it's so important to mention those like special qualities or hobbies that you might have because they're they are conversation starters and they I walk in the end gives you the job. It's not your you know, it is down to your experience a lot. Yeah, that's true. But it's also you as a person, they don't want to take on someone who does. They're an avid reader, or what my cousin toship, open three years like they if you're an avid reader, you have to prove that you're an avid reader, or if you're going to volunteer, not mentioned what it is that you like, but see what you did with it as well be just true to yourself in a CV, because it's literally I suppose a blurb of you and who you are, I suppose my next question is kind of back to whenever you were in college, and that can be pre COVID, or post COVID. Or during online learning. What did your day to day look like with like modules and labs and how you structured your own day, pre COVID, it used to be a matter of getting up in the morning, getting dressed, I was always prepared the night before for college. So I had all my folders ready to go, I had my bad code in the bag, and I just went to college. So we had lectures for about four or five hours in the morning. Now that wasn't every day, it kind of changed from year to year. So I know first year was fresh, it was quite heavy lectures. And I suppose labs, like I didn't realise how many labs we had and how many modules we did in first year. And so literally, when I finished my degree, I was like, we did so many biology modules in first year, and Matt, and there was just like a whole mixture of everything, and so many labs associated with them as well. So we were in college in first year, from basically like nine to six every single day, I suppose first year was you know, going to lectures doing labs. But it was fine, because they were like it was a lot of it was repetition from you know, secondary school as well just to get everyone kind of on the same level. So you know, he could kind of go out to the bar and stuff like that. So fresh, it was fun. and fresh. He was really good in that like there was a really nice, I suppose balance of the social aspect of college and work. Like it was nice that you had still had to go to college. And so go to the labs, even though a lot of it was repetition, you still felt like you were doing something productive. So that was first year, which was fun. They can do very, very similar. Now, second year was that's when we stream so I went into chemistry in forensic science, and that was from biological chemical scientists or chemical sciences. What did you choose? That was from chemical sciences in Chem say, in first year, the modules were mainly core, I think we only had like two or three choice modules, dresses and more cores. And then second year, secondary, I'm pretty sure I was all core for me. Because I streamed into chemistry, forensic science. So it was all it was majority, there was a few biology ones, you know, all the chemistry ones. And then forensic science as well, which was really nice, like the biology ones. And the forensic science ones. Were really nice as a break from, you know, the straight chemistry because all my friends that ended up doing strict chemistry, they had choices of modules, I think with module choices, I was really happy doing chemistry, forensic science purely based on the modules. Like, that's kind of how I made up my decision, whether I want to do straight chemistry, or if I wanted to do chemistry or forensic science, I just looked at all the modules that were available in each each year. So you know, second, third and fourth. So what was your day to day like post COVID? Then I suppose whenever you were stuck on a laptop screen, what were the kind of main differences for you? What were your main hurdles, I found online learning very difficult. So we started online learning, it was March 2020. I believe that was a year and a half ago where we that was a long time, but I just found it very difficult. To be honest, it was a very weird switch. Now we were lucky in that a lot of our modules had finished while you know, the teaching side of it had finished in majority of the modules. So we actually didn't have that many lectures online. From then onwards, it was more so I suppose labs writing lab reports and stuff like that, that we had to do at the time was that semester, a bit of a blur to be honest, because I didn't really get the whole online learning experience at the time. Like we It was literally two weeks, and we were off on our Easter break. And then our exams are straight after that. So didn't really get the experience. I mean, exams online were very weird. And I hated them despise online exams, and I genuinely Wish I could have just sat them with an invigilator you know, just without an app top someone to tell me when I need to finish how much time I've left as opposed to me checking my phone. It was so hard like it was so hard like I obviously you need to have the whole house quiet for the duration of the exam. I live in it is like all internet is shocking. Just submitting exam, you know exam papers and answer sheets. It was a disaster to say the least. So I found exams very hard. semester one a fourth. It was very hard. I thought it was really be hired to, to, you know, sit down in front of your computer for what seemed like endless hours at the time to be purely because you just got sick of it made it hard it was the fact that, you know, we were given fyp titles and all this, but realistically, you should have been given your, you know, fyp titles, what you're finding is you should have gone out, you're not even going out but you know, discussed it even discuss the fop titles in person, and even just going into a lab because, you know, we obviously, with COVID, we didn't get labs or anything like that for our final projects, which is really, really, really annoying. But you know, even you know, discussing, like, what lab you'd be working in, who you'd be working on who else is in that lab, you know, we missed out on all of that interaction, I decided in January that I'd moved down to Korea just for you know, the last semester because I just I really didn't want to spend my entire final year at home I just don't think it would have made sense you know, I would I know down the line in a few years time I would be so annoyed at myself if I just you know, spent entire finance at home and at least here I could go for like social distance work with one of the girls on my course. You know, a lot of people did decide to stay at home for finance, which is fair enough. I just knew I needed the break from home and you know, that little bit of reality as as quiet as cork was at the time like I've never seen a city so dead. It was still a some form of reality for me coming down from Slagle completely and also if the city and you can walk for a coffee and there was like a little bit of normality. So I know I was at home Limerick with my family in the countryside for the main kind of boho, it was just amazing through space, and you could like, be in fields whenever you wanted to be. But then whenever I came back for even though it was still complete lockdown, and still complete isolation, your 5k had so much in it. And like it felt like you were kind of overlap in a sense, because we could go get a coffee on your walk or your road or whatever. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, that's it just, you know, makes life a little bit more normal. And, you know, it was nice to be able to go to the library. I think the CC library was one of the only ones in the country that was open at the time, because that was locked down. Number three, I think the latest one was number three, wasn't it? Yeah. So those were, that was really nice, just to be able to, you know, if I really got stuck at home and just felt like I couldn't do any more work, I could always just move to the library. And that was like a completely new space for me to you know, sit down and focus. So it was really it was nice for a little change, you know, which I knew I needed because I did I ended up doing like my lectures at home and then moving to the library for study in the evenings. So I sent my exams here, in this bedroom, I finally your exams, which was again, so anticlimactic. I hate it, though. I was it's just, it's actually surreal to think about it. Like it's so strange. I just remember submitting my final exam, cause on the laptop, and I was like, well, I just finished my degree. Do you know, what did I do? I went to bed because I was so worried that I went straight to bed. Whereas, you know, normal times I would have been, you know, either I want my friends are out for me or something, you know, just to celebrate. Whereas I just went straight to bed. We're here to celebrate. Yeah, I think I was the day when I finished the final exam. And that was in person. I just went to bed. I used to get so worn out from exams. But that's what you get when you're studying 12 hours a day for weeks on end. That's typically what happens. How good is your quality asleep when you're that stressed? Did you have any tips and tricks for students who are in leaving certain skill under undergraduate students apart from the CB advice, I'd say kind of leaving school, go to open days have an insight into like all the modules that are available for each course you know, don't put yourself through modules you're not going to like just because you like the sound of a course it really is down to the modules that you're doing. So definitely look up the modules even contact you know, module coordinators and stuff like that just like hey, I'm in secondary school. I'd love to know more about this this this like what does it involve and stuff like that, you know, they they're lovely people they will phrase ish, you know, and as easily as possible. So definitely do that. Definitely go to open days, don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and don't necessarily do you know what everyone around you is doing. I myself and another girl in my skin were the only ones to come down to cork and for college, she ended up and see it and I was in ECC but I wouldn't have changed it for the world because it kind of got me out there a little bit more like I hadn't anyone to embark on. Do you know? So I really pushed myself to make friends in you know my course make friends like with my housemates meet loads different people so it really kind of got me out there. So definitely don't be like don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and just don't follow the crowd. Like do whatever you feel that you need to do. That's a framing device. I do think and especially when you are in school, you're like, what's my best friend doing like, we won't be able to stay friends, you will stay friends, if you are best friends, if you are really good friends, you will stay friends. And like, they'll just give you the opportunity to like, be yourself as an adult. Because then a lot of times you haven't gotten to know yourself not yet you haven't gotten to know yourself like living outside a home, cooking your own meals, the freedom of even doing your own grocery shop. So my next question is, what is the best piece of advice you've ever received? Well, I'm a Pisces. So I tend to take on a lot of my emotions from my surrounding the people around me, do you not I don't actually base a lot of my own emotions on what I actually feel. I just kind of go with whatever is around me. But I'd say definitely try anchoring like yourself first and be happy with your own person first, you know, like, create your own happiness, as opposed to relying on people to like, provide you with all of that. Don't just rely on you know, going out with your friends, to feel satisfied or happy? Do you know what I mean? Because your friends might not always be there to go out with you, your friends, you know, might go home for the weekend. So it's really important just to like, anchor like happiness, and not even happiness, but like your own paths, feelings, emotions, or that in yourself first. Yeah, completely. And so my last question for you is, what are your future plans or dream job? And where do you see yourself in the next five years? So I'm setting masters in Dublin in September. So I'm going to be doing it in chemistry, but I can choose my own modules, which is ideal, because I'm still in a position where I'm like, I don't I don't have chemistry. But what do I want to do you know what I mean? So it's, I'm, it's nice that I can actually just am, I suppose to uniquely just, you know, pick and choose my modules and get a completely, you know, one of a kind, unique degree out of it, because realistically, I'm just going to choose the modules that I want to do. And more than likely, my colleagues will not do the exact same combination. So it's really nice, that would be a unique degree. So I'll be doing that for the next year, 12 months, I hope to get a job, then in some form of industry in a lab, maybe then after that, hopefully, like research and development, but usually you need a PhD for that. So I try getting a job just for maybe a year or two. But I hope to do a PhD someday. And I, I genuinely think I'd love to be a lecturer. Think about it. Now. I've been thinking about it for the last month or two. And I was like I actually, because education was always like, in my head, do you know, like languages and you know, then the science, I was like, I can always be a chemistry teacher, you know, but looking back at it now, I actually do love college and do you know, the like the whole life and just the whole aspect of college itself. I love everything about it. And the fact that you know, in school, you're still responsible for Andre teens, and their education. And that kind of reflects you. Whereas in college, you do your job, you obviously do your job well enough to be a lecturer to be appointed lecturer, and hired as well. And so, you know, at the end of the day, it's it doesn't really affect it does, in a way reflect you but it's kind of what the students get from themselves, perhaps the lecture, possibly, like it's always been in my head, so. And I do think I'd like that more so than Yeah, any of the other any of the other, I suppose teaching jobs I've mentioned. Yeah, and I suppose for anyone who is interested in PhDs, maybe after they're done or the good industry, we will be talking to Emma in a couple of episodes time who is doing her PhD in industry. So maybe that'll be an option for you, that the company you work for. You work in that company every day and you work on a project in that company. So it's at work and you write up a thesis or publish at the end of it to get your PhD. So it's not like you have to go back to college. You can do it while working. It's not as scary as that. So Best of luck with all of that. Thank you so much for being a guest on today's show. It was great having you I'm great challenge you. Thanks so much.