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CertainTeed

Building Materials
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R&D Technician

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Unstructured co-op Malvern, PAEmployed: Spring 2019, Summer 2019
Format: In-person
Department: Roofing
Overall rating

4

Culture rating
Work rating

My experience

Overview

Carried out a lot of daily "fingerprinting" tasks for roofing asphalt batches from different suppliers and locations. On top of monitoring how the samples weathered on a weekly basis, I ran analytical testing like FTIR, shear test, TGA, and XRF; performed liquid-liquid extractions and HPLC to separate asphalt components; and also learned how to use some machinery to carry out stress tests on roofing samples. I logged all necessary information from these tasks to an Excel database so that they can be used further for statistical analysis on weathering data.

CertainTeed takes a lot of co-ops from Drexel for several different departments, so they seemed to have a good system for making sure we were occupied and learning. It was awesome to get that experience for the 6 months I worked there. One downside was living in Philly and having to commute to Malvern. You either have to take Regional Rail which can be a little exhausting at times, or sit in traffic on I-76 for an hour each way.

Would recommend it to people who...

Enjoy a balance between lab work and desk work, and can work both independently and collaboratively.

Impact of work

Time spent working


Interview advice

How did you find the job / apply?

Interview Rounds

Interview type

Interview questions

Questions were pretty standard, regarding past work experience/current knowledge from classes you've taken/etc.

Advice on how to prepare

Some of the supervisors that interview you really want you to show them you know your stuff about chemistry, when it comes to how certain tests are carried out, how the analytical machines work on a basic level, etc. If you can show them you know your stuff and that you're excited to learn more while you're there, you can't do any better than that.


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