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Pupils invited to a work experience week during the Easter vacations

A professional "taster week" awaits interested pupils from Jena and the surrounding area during the Easter vacations. In the third edition of "Internship Week Jena", young people aged 15 and over can get to know eight companies on up to eight vacation days and discover a wide range of job profiles. Anyone who wants to take part can register free of charge via the website praktikumswoche-jena.de. Pupils are asked online about their interests and talents and then automatically assigned to the participating companies. Around 90 local and regional companies are currently registered and 20 one-day internships have already been arranged. Until the vacations, companies can still add "last minute" offers and participate flexibly for between one and eight days.

"Young people can take a look at a variety of fields of work during the Easter vacations and, for example, get to know a potential training company on a day-to-day basis," says project manager Daniela Drilltzsch from the Jena Economic Development Agency (JenaWirtschaft). According to Drilltzsch, 120 young people took part last year and completed a total of 245 internship days.

In addition to JenaWirtschaft, the Jena/Saale-Holzland district craftsmen's association and the industry network OptoNet e.V. are also among the organizers of the format.

According to Manuela Vogt from the "Passgenaue Besetzung" project of the district craftsmen's association, the one-day internships are the perfect way to see that "you don't necessarily need a high school diploma or university degree for your own professional self-realization." The young people can experience for themselves - without the need for a job interview - how wide-ranging the opportunities in the skilled trades are and how proud they can be to create something with their own hands every day, says Vogt. More than 10 craft offers are currently registered for the Easter vacations.

Natalja Bajkovski from the OptoNet industry network knows that practical experimentation is also the proverbial be-all and end-all when it comes to training in the optics and photonics industry.

"What do precision opticians, physics laboratory technicians or microtechnologists actually do all day? The best way to find out is to do an internship. The photonics companies in Jena are looking forward to welcoming the students and will show them what future topics are being researched and worked on."

Numerous exciting opportunities await the potential trainees of tomorrow during the internship week, including at the companies asphericon, GRINTECH, JENOPTIK and INNOVENT Technologieentwicklung.

It's definitely worth taking part, according to those who took part last year: 100 percent of the students surveyed said they would recommend the internship week to others.