My name is Marin Middel, I am 21 years old and I live in the city of Groningen, where I was born. I study Biotechnology at Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences in Leeuwarden, majoring in Bioprocess Engineering. In September I started my internship at CEW. I am looking forward to the next six months and hope to learn a lot at CEW!
In fact, I have always known that I wanted to study something in this direction. It is also a bit in the genes, my cousin does the same education and my father also studied biotechnology for a while. First I wanted to do Biology and Medical Laboratory research, but with that you immediately make a lot of choices. After a visit to the Van Hall Larenstein open day, I knew for sure: it will be Biotechnology! This gives you a broader basis and you can go in many directions later. I chose the major Bioprocess Engineering because it contains many courses that suit me well. In addition, it is a direction in which you can express your own ideas and that appeals to me.
I did my project internship at Paques last year. I already heard about the CEW because they are monitoring the Paques Anammox project. I found out through my slut that the CEW was looking for trainees. That resulted in a job interview and now I am here. At the CEW I am going to do research into rinsing water that has been used for cleaning underground containers. What wastes are in the water and how can they be best extracted, etc. This mainly concerns a literature study.
Water is completely my thing. I have always been fairly environmentally aware of myself and there is a lot to be done with water technology. During my internship at Paques, my interest in water technology was further increased. What makes it extra fun for me personally is mathematics, which is much more fascinating with water than with soil and air.
During my previous internships, the frameworks of the projects were already completely established. During this internship at CEW I am involved from the very beginning and there is a lot of room for my own input. That is already inspiring and educational. The first few weeks it took some getting used to, because suddenly I had to sit behind my laptop a lot to read me in, but soon I can also go outside and to the Water Application Center more often. During my first week, I immediately had a meeting with the client. That was quite exciting, but luckily it went well.
Next year I might want to do the Water Technology master’s at Wetsus Academy, that seems very interesting to me!
