BC Co-op Student – Bureau Veritas
For my first co-op term, I am working as a BC Co-op Student at Bureau Veritas, in the inorganics laboratory of their Environmental Services Department. The key focus of our laboratory is to determine the amount of inorganic compounds present in water, soil and air samples, and to report this data to our clients who require it for their environmental impact assessments.
During my work term, I have been working mainly with the analysts who test for Nitrogen and Phosphorous. My main responsibilities involve going through our sample database to outline current and upcoming deadlines, developing worksheets for these samples based on the compound of interest for testing, and then preparing these samples for analysis. In the photo, as part of my sample preparation, I am putting water samples into an autoclave. We use an autoclave to sterilize these samples, as this machine uses high pressure steam at temperatures up to 121C to eliminate microorganisms that may be present in the sample, while ensuring consistent conditions for each sample prior to analysis.
During my co-op work term, I have learned a lot about the ins and outs of a professional laboratory. I have gained very valuable laboratory and professional teamwork skills, and knowledge about how environmental compliance testing is done from the laboratory setting.
This is a large reason of why co-op is so important to me and why I would encourage everyone to join coop. This work term has given me hands-on experience that will allow me to further my learning outside of the classroom, understand the various career opportunities that exist for my degree and graduate as a more well-rounded student.