A Day in the Life... Lily Blake

Lily joined Thales Research and Technology (TRT) as an engineering graduate in September 2013. The GradMail team asked Lily to give an idea of her typical working day as a Research and Development Engineer.

“Throughout university I really enjoyed the relaxed working style and varied work I undertook, so naturally when I started my first job I was very apprehensive about adjusting to a ‘desk job’. Thankfully I had nothing to worry about! I don’t think I have had two office days the same since starting at Thales, so for me there really is no such thing as a ‘typical’ day. Working in research means that my days vary greatly. To add to this, I regularly volunteer at Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) events, I am a committee member for the on-site social club and a mentor to work experience students. My day usually begins by checking my emails, for me it’s really important to stay on top of my inbox, I promptly respond where required and accept any meeting requests. Other items I flag so I can deal with them later on in the day or week.

Research graduates undertake six-month rotational projects so until September I'm studying computer vision, in particular pedestrian detection in historic video footage and the reduction of ‘false positive’ recognition." 

"This means the majority of my ‘normal’ day is made up of reading research papers, studying computer vision techniques and implementing classifier algorithms in MATLAB. Also, as part of my project work, I have weekly meetings where I have to demonstrate my progress and understanding to my project team, and sometimes key senior staff within TRT. This could mean putting together a quick example graphical user interface (GUI) to demonstrate a product, produce a presentation, do a research analysis paper or a technical report.

"One of the committees I am part of is the Ramesyss Social Club, which is run on-site at Reading. It enables Reading employees to do a number of activities including trips to the theatre, Go Karting afternoons or a comedy evening for a reduced price. It’s a really great thing to be a part of and allows me to meet colleagues whose paths I wouldn't normally cross. Due to the nature of the committee, I often spend a few minutes each day organising upcoming events and replying to related emails.

"During lunch time there is also a lot to be getting involved with. Short project demonstrations frequently happen and ‘Brown Bag’ talks are often held. A Brown Bag is where colleagues, interns or visiting speakers give a 30 minute presentation on what they have been working on or a challenge that has arisen. This allows me to find out what else is happening within the company and also to input into other project development.”