Although it has only been a month since Cristina Jex (2nd year of Master's Degree in design Galenic and Manufacturing in the Pharmaceutical Industry) began her year of internship at Novartis, it has been enough to get an idea of the functions she will perform at the Barcelona headquarters of this important company laboratory.

Within department Quality, Cristina is taking contact with the team that supervises, on a day-to-day basis, all the errors that occur on the lines: "Since I joined, I have not stopped learning. A month is not a long time, but it is enough time to get an idea of where you are. In my case, I think I'm just one piece in a big gear. There are more than 600 of us at Novartis, and in the end my work often consists of getting along with them," says the pharmacy graduate.

He also acknowledges that the things he saw at the MDGFI are also used in his day-to-day life: "Many times I think, 'We saw this. The things we were taught at Master's Degree have a great application internship. In my case, I came to Novartis not really knowing what I would be doing. I had never worked in industry. I had visited laboratories, but this is the first time I've been part of a laboratory team," he says.

A "special" training

The first week at Novartis was "a week of welcome and training", says the 2nd year student at Master's Degree. "Then I was surprised by the dedication of a whole team to make us feel integrated and get to know in depth where we were going to work. They explained to us their background, how to work and what they expected from us as part of their staff. They also trained us in rules and regulations in a very pleasant way. They emphasized concepts such as quality, why it is so important to them, etc. It had nothing to do with reading procedures because everything was explained to us in a pleasant and almost playful way," Cristina emphasizes.

At the moment, she says that at Novartis she feels "very welcome, both by my tutor and by my colleagues. I am enjoying the dynamic day-to-day work at work ; learning what each failure in the chain implies, the number of samples we must see, being aware of the number of countries to which we send our products and the demands of each one of them, etc. The scope of the industry is very broad and I hope to learn as much as possible during the year ahead of me", concludes Cristina.