Work Experience

Marine institute, Galway

On the week of the 27th of February to the 3rd of March, I went to the marine institute in Oranmore, Galway for my work experience. I really enjoyed the week and overall experience of it. During the week we visited the labs, had a lot of talks about the work that they do in the institute and learned about life at sea and on ships. 

On Monday, we were told about how they age the fish by looking at a certain bone called an ottilid. This is like a tree trunk, so you can tell it’s age by counting the number of rings on it. This was one of my favourite things that we did as I found it extremely interesting. On Tuesday we learned about the boats, the Tom Crean and the Celtic Explorer. We also used software to have a virtual tour of the boat. We were also told about various other jobs at the institute that weren’t directly associated with the ocean, like the librarian and Human Resources, after taking part in team bonding exercises, which I found really fun and entertaining. On Wednesday, we learned about some of the technology used out at sea- like an Argo float- to detect conditions to see if it’s suitable to go out in. We also learned about seabed mapping and the technologies used for this. We did a quiz on this as well, which I found really interesting.

My favourite day was Thursday. We spent all day in the labs on Thursday. In the morning, we learned about phytoplankton and bio toxins and how to test for them. We then went to the fish health unit and food packaging. At the end of the day, we dissected fish, mussels and other shellfish and looked at their organs, and how to test their kidneys to see their overall health. This was my favourite part of the course as we worked together and could learn about a fish’s anatomy visually. 

Each day for the last 30 minutes we split into groups of 6 to work on a poster presentation. This helped me make friends from all over Ireland, while also recapping on all of the things we were taught.

I am so glad I took part in this course and got to have this great experience that gave me a large insight into various different careers. This helped me narrow down my various career interests. 

Emily Moloney