Life as an intern - Part 2

Assalamualaikum.

Last week, July 10 2012, marked the two months of my internship here in PPG Shah Alam. It is really hard to believe actually that I have past a couple of months here considering the hardship and challenge that I have to face throughout my time here. There was a time when I felt so distressed and almost giving up my job. But, the challenges that I faced here actually made me stronger and better. There were thousands of good and not so good experiences I gained here that I could use it to improve myself in the future.

In the previous post, I wrote about why I'm doing my internship here, so this post will be mainly about what is my everyday activities and daily routines at my workplace. For most of the time, I'll be working in the lab. I'm assisting QC technicians to perform several quality lab test on paints based on the given specs for each paints. I'm responsible to ensure the quality assurance of all finished paint products. Basically, there are several tests that I need to perform on particular paint before it can be sent to the customer. It includes, fineness or the appearance of a certain paint, viscosity, weigh percent of solid,  sagging properties and many more. If any of the paint's specs are out, for example the paint's viscosity is too low or even too high, I need to make some adjustment and calculation to solve the problem. It may sound boring to some of you but to be truth, it is not really related to my current study actually. Maybe there is a bit that touches my course but not that much. After all, this is my first official job I've ever done in my life and I need to be able to cope the situation well.

Also, I've been given a variety of assignments or projects to be done within a certain time frame, which is throughout my internship time of course. So far, I've been involved with a lot of lean manufacturing project, such as how I'm going to improve a certain process in the plant such as the paint production process or packing process. To do that, I need to do a lot of so called paper work to properly outline the steps that are going to be taken for each process and also the power point slide to present my project to my supervisor. Another thing that I forget to mention about this factory is that it is fully manual operated plant. At first I thought, all of the process here were going to be fully automation, since PPG is one of the well regarded paint manufacturing company in the world, but sadly to say, this company depends to much on foreign workers that do not really have much skills and determination plus the language barrier that make life much harder for the supervisor and management. 

Side note.. there is still one month left before leaving this company.

To be continued..

Life as a intern

Assalamulaikum,

Currently, I am doing my internship as a chemical engineering student at one of paint manufacturing companies in Shah Alam, PPG Performance Coatings. I bet many of you do not realize or know the presence of this company or even heard about this company before. But, this company is quite prestigious worldwide..haha.. The headquarters of this company is at Pittsburgh, USA and if you check the company's profile, it has a lot of manufacturing plants all over the globe covering North America, Europe, Asia and many more. Probably, other paint manufacturing company such as Jotun, Dulux and etc are well known to the public because their products are widely used to paint the house and building. But, the truth to be told, PPG products cover more than house or even the building, they provide the coating or paint for marine ship, coating for cars and many other industries.

So, back to life as an intern here. Most of my friends were quite surprised, why do you start your practical so early in the second year? and the second question was why do you do your internship here, not in Canada instead?... So, for most of the time, I have to explain  to them again and again about my internship here. To begin with, as an engineering students, we must equip ourselves with a lot of knowledge and information in real engineering life that cannot be found in the class. In class, for a chem eng students, we solved the differential equation, learn heat and mass transfer, process engineering and etc... But in the real life, there is more that, and that kind of knowledge can only be obtained through internship or working in a particular industry. I think the best way to gain knowledge is to not wasting my 4 months summer holiday with just sleeping and doing nothing at home instead, doing an internship at any company that can provide me with experience and condition of the real working life.

For the second question, why here in Malaysia, not in Canada, the place where you're studying right now. To be truth, I have applied for a lot of job post in Canada that is related to my field and among tens of applications, I received two interview invitation, one is ERCO WorldWide and the other is Atlantic inc.. Erco is the chemical manufacturing company and atlantic is basically a paper manufacturing company.. But, due to the higher competition here in Canada, I have failed to get the position in both company and the main reason is because my CV or resume is not really appealing to them as I have no experience and what I have in my resume is mostly my projects and other academic experience. So, I decided to do my internship in Canada next year after my third year, but first I need to find a valuable experience by finding a job here in Malaysia.. and after a lot of applications and emails, I got a place here in PPG Performance Coatings Shah Alam..

Even though, there is a lot more to tell about my job here, maybe I will wrap it up in the next post..

To be continued..

Journey back home - Toronto - New York - Malaysia

Assalamulaikum and a very good day...

As the title tells, right now I have arrived safely at my home in Kampar, Perak and I am going to spend about 2 weeks at home before starting my internship.

My whole journey was really full of obstacles and hurdles..haha. My journey started from Toronto on April 26. I took a megabus from Toronto to NYC at 8.30am.. I brought 2 big luggage since I can bring 2 luggage for my flight.. To my surprise, I am only allowed to bring only 1 big luggage .. Oh my god, should I throw my bag away. I asked the driver could I pay for more or something like that, so the driver said I needed to buy another ticket... Gladly, there was a lovely white lady who didn't check in any bag, so I used her space to for my bag. Solve the first problem.

Looking at the map, Toronto and NYC seem to be like Ipoh and KL, but to be truth it took 12 hours to safely arrived at 28 st, 7 avenue, Manhattan, NYC. Actually it was my second journey to NYC, but before this I came here with my 3 other friends but this time I'm alone in NYC and I'm not really used to the MTA or subway map in NYC.. so many lanes

MTA maps in nyc

So the story of me in NYC began.. I arrived in NYC at 8.00 pm and my flight was actually on the next morning and I didn't have any plans to sleep on that night. So since I brought my 2 big luggage, I needed to carry both of them where ever I went.. haha.. can you imagine carry those 2 luggage around nyc with so many people... To find a place to sleep, I went to almost 10 hotels whether it was budget hotel or not.. and as I expected all hotels were fully booked.. so what to do... I drink a coffee at dunkin donut and went to the John F. Kennedy Airport which is situated not in Manhattan but in Queens which is about one hour journey by subway.. Luckily I found a hotel near the airport worth $100 per night. Long story short, I took the flight to Hong Kong the next morning and arrived KLIA on 10pm. 

Before I forget, I just want to advice all people travelling across States especially NYC, be prepared to give any tips to anybody who helps you for something, whether the person helps you carrying your luggage or try to help you finding a room. Even though, you do not give them the tips or you give them to low, they will ask for it or even ask for more..haha

The end....

What Chemical Engineers Do

Rase nak buat wordless post gak

Starting back

Well, no updates for almost a couple of months are really sick man. It doesn't mean I'm no longer active in blogging even though I have a lot of things to share with all of the readers, but I prefer more to read other's blog post rather than expressing my thought here.

To begin with, it was almost two years I'm living away from my family and just 3 more months before the summer holiday which I totally can't wait for it to come. Some of us, my colleagues probably from northern earth hemisphere have already booked their flight ticket back home, especially for those who are first year students. I know the feeling of missing something that we are accustomed to especially, the food, people, weather and a lot more in Malaysia, that is the reality. 

But for me, the future even though it's just a couple of month to go, it's still blurred. I mean, I cannot decide whether to go back or not. Well, for those who don't know, I really want to do any internship program here in Canada in any chemical processing plant or oil and gas industry to increase my experience because even if you are graduating from any top university in the world, without sufficient experience, it will be hard enough to find any good job.

Last but not least,  next week is the reading week. Basically, it is a week off for all students here and many other universities in Canada too. It's kinda weird to give a short break just in the middle of the semester, not at the end of semester to give students a bit time to study for the final. But, after all it is a bless for me to finish all of my assignment and studying for the upcoming mid term.