Staffan Fagerudd is a freshly graduated Structural Engineer who is doing his second summer traineeship at Citec. Staffan first came to Citec for summer 2021 as a Trainee. After the summer he did an internship for Citec and then also the Bachelor thesis.
Hello, Staffan! Please tell us how your traineeships have been and what you have learnt so far.
I have learnt a lot and enjoyed my time as well. It has been nice to be able to apply knowledge from school in real design work. It feels that now I see the whole picture; at school we just calculate but here I see how it is done in reality. It has also been interesting to see how many various disciplines are important in a project.
I have been allowed to do many things. I have done lots of calculation based work and drawings. I have also participated in meetings with the Project Manager and the customer. At personal level I feel that I have learnt to organise my work, to structure it better. This has been helpful also with the last school projects this year. This summer I look forward in doing more design work and especially more calculations.
You did your thesis for Citec. How was the process?
The thesis process was very smooth. My manager, Ronny Engblom, introduced several interesting topics to me to choose from. One about steel connections caught my eye and I wanted to learn more about the subject, so in the end it was an easy choice. The teamwork with my thesis supervisors from Citec worked extremely well. I feel I got plenty of support. We had dedicated meetings every second week and in between I was able to ask any questions I had. I can really recommend the traineeship at Citec and also thesis work to everyone. 
What is important for you in a work community and what makes Citec stand out?
It is important to be able to ask questions without fear of not getting answered. I feel that at Citec there is a safe environment to grow. Also ability to work as a team is important and I really feel that I am included in the team here.
I am motivated to come to the office and meet new people. Every Wednesday the whole team comes to the office. I like exchanging thoughts with colleagues face to face. The coffee breaks are always nice. We have a really multicultural working environment and we often use two to three languages during one coffee break.
What plans do you have for the future?
I will work as summer trainee at Citec until late August. Then I will move to Helsinki to do my Master’s at Aalto University. I will focus on studying for the first year and after that I hope I am able to continue working at Citec.
It’s great to have you onboard Staffan!
Interested to read more career stories? You can meet other Citecians here.
