"Summer School was a great experience that I highly recommend”
09/10/2017
Air Liquide’s Summer School in Paris
The Summer School programme is a unique opportunity for international students with a business or scientific background to learn more about Air Liquide and its activities.
Pia Bierman, a 23-year-old German, recently started her second year at Air Liquide within the international internship programme. She submitted her application for the Summer School week in Paris, and was selected along with 29 other top students to participate in this special programme.
“Shortly after obtaining my Bachelor’s degree in business management in Germany, I started the international internship programme at Air Liquide Benelux. This programme puts participants to work on internships all over the world. Because my experiences had been so positive, I requested another internship with Air Liquide the following year,” explains Pia.
What does the programme include?
“During a feedback session, my HR manager told me about the Summer School programme. She said I met all the requirements and urged me to submit my application. I discovered that the Air Liquide Summer School programme offers interesting opportunities to explore the company’s activities in both breadth and depth. Every year in July, 30 international students are invited to spend a week in Paris. Several sites are visited during that week and there are many educational presentations on the agenda."
"The intention is to enable students to immediately apply the new knowledge they acquire to a related case. The Summer School programme not only provides insights into the daily activities of Air Liquide, it also exposes participants to future trends and technologies."
"I found it to be particularly valuable as a platform for discussion and information exchange between students from different fields and cultural backgrounds.”
Summer School: the benefits
“It was very useful for me to take part in this programme, as it gave me insight into activities and segments of the business I wasn’t yet familiar with through my day-to-day work for Air Liquide. I now have a much clearer insight into the current and future activities and objectives of the group. That has been very useful information for me right from the start, because the Business Development department where I work is strongly focused on innovations.”
“The groups we worked with were very diverse and were made up of engineers and students from all over the world. This provided a profound impression of what it’s like to work for an international industrial company like Air Liquide. In addition, the Summer School offered me a number of opportunities for professional development which I could also use outside of Air Liquide, such as interview training and a CV check.”
Building a network across 20 countries
“It truly was a special experience to spend a week with people from very different cultural backgrounds. Because our group was made up of students from more than 20 countries, it was particularly interesting to exchange experiences and gain insights into the way other trainees work. Even though the Summer School is now behind me, I still keep in touch with a large number of participants, and we’ve benefited on several occasions from the network we’ve built up."
"All in all, the Summer School was a great experience that I strongly recommend to all students who are interested in Air Liquide as a future employer.”