Hope, ambition, and the luckiest boy on Earth
The European Space Agency undertakes space programs on behalf of its 18 member states, working to co-ordinate national programs and pool resources to do what the countries individually wouldn't be able to accomplish. ESA is a major player in space science, Earth observation, launcher development, and several other areas of the space enterprise.
Among the Agency's strategies for building capacity in the member states is the Young Graduate Trainee program. Successful applicants, usually recent graduates of a master-level program in science or engineering, are employed for a year in one of the Agency's facilities, taking part in current programs and gaining real experience on space projects to help them start their career. At the same time, they're immersed in the Agency's daily functions, so they learn how ESA works, how it interacts with the European space industry and political institutions, and the overall state of space in Europe. It's a unique and very successful program.
I applied for the YGT program in 2006, shortly after I finished my undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering. Like so many new graduates, I was faced with a lifetime and a career, and big decisions about what to make of them. I had all kinds of options, but to some extent it took me a while to figure out where I wanted to go, what to hope for... even what I dared hope for. Somewhere, from youthful naivete or audacity, from a desire to aim high or see just what potential I had, I resolved to indulge in dreaming big.
I came across the YGT program on ESA's website -- a site I was only looking at because I had been previously aware of the Agency. I'd learned of it while building a model of the space shuttle Discovery with my father, when I was about seven years old. The model came with a little Spacelab module to put in the payload bay, complete with ESA logo decal. That model was still hanging in my bedroom when the time came to look for jobs on the websites of space agencies.
I had no idea what my chances were, but I updated my resume, filled out the online form, and prepared the required narrative describing my motivation. Not knowing what sort of cover letter they were expecting, I decided to lay out my motivations directly and just tell them the truth. I've still got that text; it's sort of a snapshot of my mentality and hopes at the time, the cautious dreaming of someone newly grown up, with the wonder of childhood a fresh memory.
You can read that narrative here, if you're interested.
I got the job. It turned out to be an excellent experience, all around, and I recommend it to anyone interested in a career in space, in international exposure and experience, or in a chance to work on exciting and meaningful projects in a stimulating and motivating environment. Hardly a day went by during my stay at ESA that I didn't reflect on just how fortunate I'd been to have a chance to work in the heart of a real and active space program, preparing equipment for flight and learning things I could scarcely learn elsewhere. And, as it turns out, my job was developing experiments for the successor facility to Spacelab, with a supervisor who'd built the predecessor experiments while I was building that model.
I'm happy to tell you about the program, or you can read about it on the Agency's website here. The program is open to nationals of the participating states in Europe, and Canada as a co-operating state.
Posted 21 November 02010
