Collaboration in focus when interns are making difference

For a young person who graduates from high school, choosing the next step might be difficult. How to find a profession that interests you the most and how to start studies that lead to your future profession and career? Sometimes the choice is easy and fits like a glove right away, sometimes you must test and try several times to find the right thing.

Romi Viskar from Estonia can relate to this. After pondering about her career path, she has learned that the most important is to choose studies that make you excited the most. She studies environmental, energy and chemical technology at TalTech, Tallinn University of Technology. But the path that finally led her to the energy field was not straightforward.

First, Romi went to Tartu to study pharmacology, but she quickly terminated the studies as she lacked enthusiasm to become a pharmacist after all. She then applied to several universities for different degrees.

Eventually, she found TalTech. The decision was influenced by the fact that the attitude there seemed the most friendly and supportive for her preference. The specialty also seemed the widest and most versatile – you can learn many interesting subjects and later decide what you want to do.

– I am so happy with my choice of specialty. I wouldn’t have thought in my life that I would find myself in the field of energy. But thanks to my internship period at Adven, I’m becoming more and more confident every day that I want to continue within this field, says Romi eagerly.

Romi was granted the first scholarship of Adven Sustainable energy in Estonia in the end of May this year. With that scholarship Adven aims to support the education of the new generation of energy engineers.

Romi was selected out of several applicants because of her active and proven enthusiasm towards the energy field. Adven jury also liked the fact that Romi is committed to learning and self-development in becoming a top-level engineer, and thus contributing to finding ways to support a sustainable impact even more broadly.

In addition to granting scholarships, Adven also contribute in organizing training and lectures as well as providing energy experience through thesis projects, internships, or summer jobs throughout Adven Group.

Additionally to the scholarship program, Romi also worked as a summer trainee:

– During the summer I worked in different functions: in district heating for example it was interesting to learn in real life how the heat is distributed to Adven’s customers. I also made blueprints of the connection plans. Visiting the boiler houses was very eye opening and I even climbed inside of two boilers during revision to do the cleaning. Your white protective clothing no longer was white once the work was done, Romi laughs.

Collaboration is in the core of the company, Romi praises. That she also experienced in practice. She was surrounded by friendly team mates who supported her whenever she needed help or had questions. Romi also enjoyed the overall atmosphere within the company.

Overall, the summer was full of great experiences, and she is assured that she has made the right decision in choosing her field.

Gaining work experience as an intern during studies gives perspective to theory and can support the student as accruals. One successful internship can mean that another one is offered to you next year. Mika Halme from Finland has experienced this in practice.

He has worked two summers in a row as a trainee in Adven’s automation team. The team consists of seven specialists with wide-scale Instrumentation & Controls (I&C) expertise and a strong “safety-first” and process orientation approach.

Automation is about enabling and securing safe, reliable, and effective services for customers by supervising, controlling, and analyzing production plant processes automatically and reporting online actual status and key performance indicators of the plant. And thanks to remote operation and automation nearly 80% of the site notifications can be resolved remotely.

Before his studies in engineering, Mika graduated from Lahti vocational school with an electrical and automation installer degree in his back pocket. He then gained some working experience from the energy company Lahti-Energia where he oversaw the energy sites’ electrical and automation maintenance work.

Overall, Mika thinks that the energy field is in a constant change which he finds intriguing. Ahead are challenges of the turbulent markets yet many opportunities: the energy transition and improving energy efficiency, as well as finding and developing new energy solutions and utilizing the best technologies. Basically, what Adven works with already.

All this offer interesting possibilities for energy professionals, and students:

– What interests me the most in the energy field, and Adven, is the versatile career options within automation. Energy production, especially heat and steam production, is important in many industrial processes but also for society, so prospects in the field are excellent, says Mika.

And he continues:

– I applied for a summer job at Adven because I wanted more experience in the operation, automation, and maintenance of energy plants.

Mika thinks that it is important that the values of an employee and the company meet. Luckily, both his and Adven’s values are strongly aligned, as both emphasize long-term view, strong cooperation, and ambitious goals in the energy transition towards a more sustainable future.

And the values are also seen concretely when working. The nice and cooperative atmosphere, not just within the automation team but with other teams as well, enhances great collaboration that extends across teams. This is very important when working at energy sites, where safety and information sharing are focal points.

– A great team spirit enables the sharing of information and views, which also helps in problem solving. Every team can express their thoughts freely and feel valued. My team is an important part of my everyday work, says Mika.

The weekly work includes PLC programming in the office, data collection of facilities and software installations for facility computers, but there is also fieldwork at sites, e.g., Safety-Related-System (SRS) tests. The work also includes cooperation with Adven’s ICT, control room, data team and site operators.

Following your parent’s footsteps when choosing your own career path can be the right choice.

Elīna Miķelsone from Lativa did this when applying to Riga Technical University. There she studies environmental engineering. Her dad influenced her to choose the field of studies, as he used to work with water treatment.

Although studying engineering can sometimes be hard, it is also a way to be closer to key societal processes and that is what is giving Elīna a purpose too. She wants to be part of making a positive impact and working towards a better planet and sustainable future.

– Of course, all studies and working life have its ups and downs, but when studying engineering it will never get boring, says Elīna energetically.

The university organized a Careers Day that connected companies with university students seeking future career opportunities and summer jobs.

At the event Elīna and other environmental students saw an interesting glass container full of woodchips. They navigated their way over to Adven’s booth.

– We thought instantly that Adven must be connected to the environment and sustainability matters. I started a conversation with Adven’s kind staff that a few months later became my colleagues, as I got a summer job, Elīna explains.

During the summer, she worked at Adven Latvia’s head office in Riga with junior-level environmental specialist tasks. She focused on learning more about Adven’s environmental documentation and what duties an environmental specialist has.

Part of her job was also to check and process delivery documentation of woodchips and participate in the audit of the supply scheme for sustainability of woodchips.

The internship was very rewarding as Elīna learned more about environmental work and got to polish her good cooperation skills even further. She experienced that asking for help is considered a virtue rather than something negative.

– It helped a lot when there were so many uncertain things that I needed to do. Whenever I needed some help, somebody was there to help me, says Elīna.

Even though she primarily worked in Riga, Elīna got the opportunity to visit Adven sites in Latvia during her internship. That opened her eyes even further.

Colleagues were what Elīna liked the most about working at Adven. Everywhere she went she only met positive people and true sincerity.

Read more:

Career at Adven

Interns’ different backgrounds are a strength

Meet Adven’s teams