I chose to study Biomaterials at Loughborough for numerous reasons. To begin with, it is second in the country for Materials Engineering (Guardian University Guide 2021) and has a lot of excellent facilities available. It also contains a lot of topics that I have a high interest in. Further to this, I liked the idea of having everything on a campus and the various opportunities to take part in a diverse range of activities - particularly the sport opportunities caught my eye.
Within the department I had good support with finding a placement. Malcolm, who oversees placements for the department, emails us with placement opportunities when applications became available, and I was advised on which placement websites to use. I was also given the option to get my CV and cover letters checked, as well as doing mock interviews/assessment centres.
I did my placement in Loughborough with a (currently) small company called Interface Polymers Ltd. (IPL). My role was Polymer Process Engineer, and I was part of the technical team carrying out research and development. I got to become an important member of the team as there was only two of us doing my role, so I had the opportunity to contribute my own ideas, and introduced a new test which now gathers important data for them.