“Hello,

My name is Mathieu MORVANT, I’m a French engineering student and I’m 21 years old and come from Lorient which is in the west of France in a region called Brittany.

In France I am studying the mechanics, electronics, electricity, … and I also work in a little company called MOLDING France as engineering apprentice. I’m currently in the third year of my studies. I have five years of studying before getting my engineering degree.

As part of my studies, I had to do an international internship of 11 weeks minimum (3 months) in the industrial sector. The main goal of this internship is to be more fluent in English because at the end of the year we have to success an English degree : the TOEIC. But also to discover another culture and to be more open-minded.

With my tutor in France we were searching for my internship since November but due to COVID it was difficult to find one. A few months before the beginning of my internship we asked Hassia –  one of our customers – if it could be possible to take me in Germany as intern. So the 7th of June I started my internship in a country that I didn’t know before, alone and without speaking one word German.

For about 1 month, I spent all my time with Özgür Gezici in the purchasing department. He talked to me about a lot of things, in English, and I have to recognize that it was not easy at the beginning to understand everything he told me. But, after few days I got used to it. Everybody was very kind with me and it was a pleasure for me to speak with the colleagues here in English.

Then, progressively, Özgür sent me some work that I can do like entering data in the system, request offers from suppliers, … At the same time he entrusted me the mission to classify different parts by different criteria (material, welding, with treating, large pieces, …). Then each piece gets an unique code which enables the analyzation how much money has been spent for which type of article and in which country of the IMA group. Based on this analyse the purchasing department would be able to better coordinate the number of materials to be purchased. Everything was fine until I discovered that there were more than 22 thousands of lines on the Excel sheet… At the beginning, I just printed a sheet of paper to have codes under eyes but it took me a lot of time. So I analysed a little bit the codes. In reality, all the codes are designed in the same way. I printed another sheet  with 4 tables with all possibilities for a part. For the beginning it was fine. But I’m perfectionist and I always want to improve myself. So I created macros on Excel to be faster. I never learned the VBA (language for macros in Excel) but, here, like I had a goal to reach, it motivated me and I learned a lot by myself to create this. Today I have about twenty pictures with macros behind where I just have to click on it, in accordance of drawings, to create the code and open the next PDF’s drawing.

Currently, I also spent some time downstairs in the quality department and normally the next week I will go to the engineering department to gain an insight about the work there. Furthermore, I am also the link between Hassia and my French company : MOLDING France, which is a supplier to Hassia for molds or other parts for thermoforming.

In the evening and during the weekend I spent also some time with Özgür. We are both very sportive. During my stay, Özgür moved to another apartment and I helped him with his relocation. My parents came also to Germany and we spent one week together and visited the region.

Thanks to this internship I’m now more fluent in English whether written or spoken. For me, an international internship is a really good experience for everyone who has the possibility to do it. It’s amazing how fast you improve your English (because you don’t have the choice if you don’t speak the country’s language) and to be more independent and resourceful.

It was a real pleasure to be an internship at Hassia and to write this little article in English”