Bailey Anderson is a junior on the UGA Equestrian team. She is majoring in Biochemical Engineering and had the opportunity to participate in an internship with Central Life Sciences during the summer of 2016.
This past summer I was an Engineering Intern for Central Life Sciences. Central Life Sciences is a manufacturing company that produces veterinary, animal health, specialty pest control and public health/vector control products. I worked closely underneath a Process Engineer mostly on pest control products and vector control markets.
My main project over the summer was to lead a project on new product realization. To do this, I utilized JMP, experimental design software, to model possible inputs for maximizing desired outputs, such as the potency of the product or the life of the product. The outcome of the project was a new product with improved performance and only a marginal increase in costs. Along with this, I contributed to many other projects. Some include analyzing and modeling expansion coefficients to calculate the required headspace in packaging to prevent leakage, conducting a root cause analysis on large tank cleanout failures, and optimizing the drying and packaging process for an already existing product.
When working on these projects, I got to work closely with multiple people throughout the Central Life Sciences plant, mainly production workers, formulary chemists and engineers. I also had to reach out to many different suppliers and companies when doing research for new packaging and equipment to optimize certain processes. Along with this, I also had to learn how to use a lot of new equipment and machinery. It was very interesting to learn about them and get hands on experience because I feel like it is something I will not get the chance to learn about at school. At the end of my summer internship, I was assigned with the task of making and presenting a final presentation. I presented this to a large group of people with some of them being Vice President and President of the company.
I think the hands on experience and being allowed to lead projects on my own really prepared me for further internships and for a job after college. Some tasks I was assigned seemed scary or intimidating at first, such as the big presentation, but they are something I am really glad I had the opportunity to do because they allowed me to grow a lot as an engineer. In the beginning, I was afraid to mess up or give a wrong answer, however, I quickly learned that that is kind of what an internship is for. It gives you the chance to have those mistakes and have someone teach you why you are wrong and what is correct. I really enjoyed my opportunity at Central Life Sciences and all of the people that I got to work closely with.
