As part of “Cambridge Unlocked – Internships into corporate Cambridge” organised by Form the Future, we were delighted to host Yamin Billah, a 17-year-old student currently studying at Hills Road Sixth Form College for a week’s internship at Qkine.

During his week at Qkine, Yamin was able to spend time with the commercial sales and marketing teams, and with the laboratory-based teams of research and development and manufacturing.

Yamin commented “I applied for an internship at Qkine to gain work experience and to explore potential career paths. I didn’t know what to expect and life at Qkine was so surreal. I had a taste of the commercial side in different departments such as sales and marketing and had a talk with the CEO of the company, Catherine Elton. I also had a little hands-on experience in the lab with the R&D team which was great.”

Yamin came to Qkine interested in pursuing a degree apprenticeship in finance and accounting once he finishes his A-levels. “Since year 10 I have always been keen on the business industry, such as finance, and plan to get into a degree apprenticeship, so I wanted to explore and see what it is like working at a commercial place of work. Talking to Catherine was great as I got to ask lots of questions on what she thought about different career paths, as opposed to the traditional university route. She was open to it and thought it would be great if more people were aware of the different routes into careers as university isn’t the only option.”

However, since his week at Qkine, Yamin has decided to broaden his apprenticeship options and perhaps investigate some alternative careers, “one thing that did surprise me, and I plan to investigate more, is distribution relationship management. I was interested to see how working with other countries can be different and looking at trends to set a strategy for increasing sales. This experience has opened my thoughts on different careers as I didn’t realise how much is out there and especially how I should build my network to pursue my career. The team was great, Alice, Alison, Andy, and Luana were all welcoming and they taught me how life in a full-time job operates. My plan is to finish my second year of college and find a degree apprentice but now I won’t just be considering the finance industry as there are other commercial options available that I didn’t know of before. Someone wise once told me you create your own luck and that is what I plan on doing.”

During his time at Qkine, Yamin also created a small social media project which can be seen on our LinkedIn and Twitter channels.