DPG Visitors: The physicist’s hands-on workday
When selecting a career while a student, it’s not always easy to anticipate what future workdays might look like. Therefore, SCANLAB gladly welcomes visiting groups from universities and research institutions for a look behind the scenes.
The German Physical Society (DPG) regularly offers an ‘On-Site Day’ of events and trips allowing physics students to become acquainted with typical industry workplaces. In late February, such a student group visited SCANLAB in Puchheim, Germany. The mixed group of undergraduate and post-graduate students from various academic institutions was able to not only tour SCANLAB’s manufacturing facilities and laser laboratory, but also to speak with physicists about their highly varied job duties.
SCANLAB colleagues – this time all graduate physicists and some with doctorates – reported on their typical workdays in technical sales, product management and applications, as well as optics and scanner-related R&D. In an open roundtable discussion, the students could pose questions on the motives for occupational choices and satisfaction with the various areas of responsibility. In the process, they also learned a lot about scan system design and the technical challenges of individual components in laser processing machines.
The unanimous opinion in the end: “An on-site day like this is a fantastic supplement to academic studies. Technical topics are far more tangible when you can visualize a related practical application. And some preconceptions about various departments in corporations got completely overturned. Absolutely recommended before starting the job application process!”
