Internship in Upper Lusatia

They actually did it: all seven students in the "Energy and Environmental Engineering" bachelor’s program at the German-Kazakh University of Almaty completed their required internship at companies in Zittau or the surrounding region.

During the summer semester of 2014, students from this and a younger cohort visited the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences as part of a two-week study trip to further their education in the field of quality, environmental, and energy management systems. The older cohort subsequently expressed a desire to complete their mandatory internship in Zittau.

The Chair of Integrated Management Systems organized the corresponding internship positions. From January 10 to April 8, 2015, the students worked on such interesting topics as:

• Developing a database of personal protective equipment and integrating the occupational safety management system into the quality and energy management systems (Plouquet GmbH)
• Determining the heat demand for the conversion from steam to hot-water heating (Abraham Dürninger GmbH & Co. GmbH)
• Energy recovery from a hardening furnace (Ibex Automotive GmbH)
• Analysis of energy consumption data and identification of energy-saving potential (MS Powertec)
• Integration of the energy management system into the quality management system (SachsenFenster GmbH)
• Development of a reference spectrum database for the automatic sorting of bioplastics (RTT GmbH)
• Evaluation and presentation of environmental data from Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences (HSZG)

The companies’ feedback on the students’ language and technical skills as well as the results they achieved was consistently positive upon completion of their degree. Many companies are interested in continuing the collaboration, both with these or other DKU students and, more generally, with students from HSZG. Thus, the internship also served to help the companies become more familiar with the academic programs and collaboration opportunities at HSZG.

Continued collaboration between the companies and their former interns could become a reality, as five of the seven students are interested in continuing their master’s studies at HSZG in the “integrated management” program after completing their bachelor’s degree at DKU in May 2015. Before their departure, they therefore obtained detailed information from the Student Affairs Office regarding the application process, required documents, and deadlines. We would certainly look forward to seeing them again in Zittau!

We would like to take this opportunity to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported us—organizationally, professionally, and personally—in carrying out this internship!