Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

I work within the Environmental Chemistry research team, specialising in occupational hygiene. The majority of my work involves project management on a global scale across many different sites. I am involved in the investigation and assessment of physical (noise, vibration, radiation) and chemical (carcinogens, mutagens, etc.) hazards that the workforce may be exposed to resulting in ill health, and methods to control these exposures ensuring ongoing compliance with local and international legislation. I am also involved in the production and implementation of company codes of practices to achieve control of exposures. My speciality is with respect to carcinogens.

There is a lot of day to day variety in the work that I do. Approximately 40%of my time is spent at a desk. Activities include writing reports and other documentation, researching, communicating with sites, consideration of legalities and other legislative matters and general administrative work. The other 60% is spent on sites undertaking survey work and assessments, providing education and interacting with management and the workforce and providing assistance with implementing controls from engineering solutions through to administrative controls and working practices. The scale of the sites vary from the large integrated sites to small 1/2 operator based sites.

I enjoy the variety of the work; no two days are ever the same. I enjoy problem solving, of which there is plenty. I appreciate the opportunity to understand the manufacturing and the potential control processes, which provide a never ending learning curve. I generally enjoy interacting with people at all levels of the organisation. Most of all, I enjoy the job satisfaction - the reality of the situation is that you could be saving lives through ill health prevention.

There is a lot of travel and unsociable hours involved at periods, which can be tiring and place restrictions on home life.

Working with a wide range of people also mean that you work with a wide range of personalities, some of which may not be compatable with your own.

The hardest thing is when people resist change despite education and trying to determine motivations for all parties involved.

I had never heard of this field, but my manager suggested that I might enjoy it. I wasn't suited to being permanently tied to a desk although I enjoy writing. I also wanted variety in my work and had a naturally inquisitive mind with good observational skills. Needless to say he was correct in his assignment and to the current day I continue to enjoy my work.

A lot of the skills, both transferrable and non transferrable, that I did learn at university.
Tranferrable - I undertake a lot of research and report writing along with peer reviewing. Observational skills and data analysis along with rationalisation are important. Communication plays a major part.

Non- transferable - The hazards of concern are chemical and physical in nature and therefore understanding the associated chemistry, physics and to some degree biochemistry and human toxicology is a necessity. Knowledge of analytical chemistry is required in my field as well.

As well as my masters degree, I have continued my technical education within my role and hold the certificate of competency in occupational hygiene as issued by the British Occupational Hygiene Society.

Throughout my career to date, management training and project management training has been ongoing, both through relevant training courses and mentor ship, both within and outside of the company I work for.