Students get industry ready
FIVE university students are well equipped for rewarding resource industry careers after completing a three-month vacation program with New Hope Group last week.
With sights set on kick-starting a career in mining, students were split between New Hope’s Ipswich and Darling Downs locations including its New Acland and Jeebropilly Mines and its corporate head office in Brookwater.
Blackstone local and mechanical engineering student Ashtika Devi worked alongside maintenance staff at both mines helping to increase efficiencies during maintenance of equipment fitted with noise attenuation.
“I worked with the maintenance team to re-design the Louisville service truck tray so it can be utilised for down days and I also restructured certain service sheets to ensure tasks ran efficiently.” Ashtika said.
“I had never visited a coal mine before so I was in awe of the scale of everything during my first day, the equipment is so big.”
“I would definitely recommend the program to other students because my time at the two mines taught me so much and I was always made to feel part of the team.”
New Hope also welcomed its first health and safety vacation student, Damian Avenia, who is currently studying commerce and majoring in occupational health and safety.
“I spent my three months at New Acland Mine and when you get to site you can tell health and safety is a big deal for the company,” Damian said.
“I’ve been working across the site’s different health and safety activities. My major project was updating the Emergency Response Procedures Manual and streamlining it into one comprehensive and overarching document.”
New Hope recruits annually for its vacation program which sees many students go on to have rewarding careers with the company like Jeebropilly Mining Engineer Josh Cleary.
“My vacation period gave me a massive head start in terms of practical experience and it put me in good stead when Jeebropilly later recruited for a new engineer,” Josh said.
“Vacation work is invaluable for students but it’s also a great way for New Hope to find and train new talent.
“In our engineering team alone there are three of us who started out with New Hope as students and I know it’s a similar case for our geology department too.”