Gabriel’s Musings

Industrial Attachment @ Agilent Technologies (Yishun)

Every engineering student in NTU will have to go through a hands-on course called the Industrial Attachment (IA) or simply, internship. For my IA, we have to undergo 22 weeks in a company that will be hiring us. Mine is Agilent Technologies.

As of today, it is still my first week of work (day 4 to be exact) and turns out that the company that I’m attached to is not bad at all. The facilities and infrastructure is quite good. We have our own tags/passes, an in-house cafeteria and food court, a gym, basketball court, tennis court, futsal court, pool table and foosball table. In terms of food availability, we have a a vast variety of food courts/hawker centres within 10 minutes walk and the price is within $2-$5 range. We even have a wet market where we can purchase our basic everyday needs.
Oh, we even have our own cubicle, our own phone, our own email and our own computer! We could online, install applications and surf the Internet. hahah.. For the first week, it’s mainly reading and researching about a device called FrameScope Pro and hence, we could surf the Internet as a source of information.

Our pantry is well equipped too with a free for all drink dispenser (a variety of hot drinks such as milo, teh tarik, cappucino, nescafe, etc.) They also provide a fridge for us and surprisingly, no one ever steals anything! We even found a few pints of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream! So tempted to eat them.. lol.

Now, am planning to beautify my cubicle workspace. Planning to put some fake plants (no need to upkeep), photos, calendars, table clock, food storage, mugs and stationaries. What else can I include?

Probably the downside here is the work culture. Because my department is mainly R&D, everyone’s pretty serious and quiet. Very little talking and the sound of my keyboard is actually relatively quite loud. Luckily there’s boon jin in my department and we could at least discuss stuffs on our work related things and of course, non-work ones. lol… Also have another friend, Sheng Qiao, from a different department, but we’re on the same level. So we normally have lunch together outside.

Generally, it’s quite good apart from the long travelling hours. Hope I could survive the 22 weeks here humanely.