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.
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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.
![DPG Ein Tag vor Ort SCANLAB Fertigung](/sites/default/files/2020-06/DPG-Ein-Tag-vor-Ort-SCANLAB-Fertigung-small.jpg)
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!”
![DPG Ein Tag vor Ort SCANLAB](/sites/default/files/2020-06/DPG-Ein-Tag-vor-Ort-SCANLAB-small.jpg)