Dear Hiring Professionals,

I am contacting you today in reference to a research and development internship position that involves a
background in chemistry. It is with great honor to be able to apply to such an innovative establishment.
As a determined and hardworking Penn State student, I am striving to form a strong foundation for my
career, and I foresee many opportunities that can provide that opportunity. The value of excellence and
quality this establishment offers to its employees and customers is one of a kind, one that will amplify my
skills and have them rebound back to the company.

Being a junior at The Pennsylvania State University, I have already had two and a half years under my
belt to make connections, get involved, and maintain positive work habits. I have made relationships with
professors and classmates, as well students around campus through clubs and activities. I have filled my
schedule with various clubs and activities such as innovative undergraduate research, a THON committee,
IM sports, and more. On top of all of this, I have kept focus on my studies, taking many chemistry classes
and maintaining a 2.9 GPA. I am eager and willing to translate my consistent success, involvement, and
connection-making to benefit both the company and myself.

Part of my workload during my years at Penn State involved various activities and projects involving
teamwork and communication. I displayed my leadership and teamwork skills in many situations that
benefitted myself and my classmates. Specifically, I displayed these skills in my organic laboratory that
required my partner and I to design document three of our own synthetic experiments, with a wide
selection of reagents and lab techniques we had to choose from to create our desired products with great
yield. Beyond amplifying my teamwork and leadership skills, these experiments have helped me to think
critically about what reaction and purification techniques would be needed to perform real-world
reactions used in synthetic research and development laboratories like yours. I also used techniques like
NMR, IR, and melting/boiling point to characterize and identify the products that were created, which are
critical techniques in any laboratory to confirm the identity of an unknown substance. This would allow
me to be used effectively immediately in any lab/ your lab I would be placed in. These experiences and
skills would allow me to work effectively in any lab and make immediate contributions to my team.

Another part of my academics at Penn State includes laboratory activities and projects involving working
with my fellow peers. I displayed many other attributes found in successful employees at the work place
as well as in the classroom. Specifically, I displayed these skills in my Analytical Chemistry class and
laboratory that required my team to use analytical techniques such as calibration curves, internal
standards, and using Beer’s Law of spectroscopic absorption to determine concentration of analytes in
solution. Other techniques that were mastered in this lab that are used in any analytical chemistry
laboratory were techniques such as HPLC, GC and column chromatography. My team and I managed to
master these techniques and use them to separate and determine concentrations of unknown mixtures and
solutions. Beyond amplifying my teamwork and communication skills, these labs have helped me grow
and think critically about real-world problems and provide a solution.

A part of my experiences outside of my course work at Penn State is conducting research with Dr. Ryba
who is a material science and engineering professor, and in this research, we are trying to discover the
positions of the atoms that make up crystal structures. This was and still is a challenging task that both Dr.
Ryba and I are persevering through to hopefully publish a paper about our discoveries. In this research we
collected x-ray powder diffraction pattern data from the crystal of interest where we are attempting to
obtain knowledge about the indexed parameters of the crystal including the position of the atoms within a
crystal cell. This research taught me to be very precise with every action needed because there is a level
of perfection that is necessary when using diffraction data. It is be impossible to obtain any knowledge
about the structure if there is a slight compromise in the data. I also have to use creativity during this
research by comparing and looking for any patterns that could be similar to another crystal. Through this
research, I have grown and learned to be creative and use problem solving skills to get through all
problems I may come across since these are brand new problems that have never been answered before.
These skills can translate to nearly any aspect of life.

As demonstrated by my prior experiences, I am a driven leader, worker, and student. To start my career, I
am determined to form a firm foundation of experience and knowledge. Thank you for this opportunity
and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely, Mitchell Cardow