Civil Engineer

Adel Saad

Civil Engineering

Placement (10 Months+)

Mott MacDonald

During my placement, I was mainly working on a rail scheme local to Birmingham. The Camp Hill Line project involved developing three previously closed historic railway stations in South Birmingham

My role mainly involved working on BIM. Through BIM, I was working on Clash detection which is a process used to detect any conflicts and clashes between different models in the design process. This process identified issues at an early stage, which helped prevent costly adjustments and delays during the construction phase. I was responsible for running different discipline models against each other including Architectural, Civil and Structural models. I then analysed where the clashes were, and the potential issues which were there, before communicating with the senior engineers to discuss how they could be resolved.

My role within the business organisation

I was working as a Civil Engineer in the Stations and Civils team in Birmingham as part of Rail Division.

One of the main benefits of my placement was that aside from my project work, I had the opportunity to do many other external activities, such as a site visit to Dudley Road improvement scheme:

I was also able to involved in many events such as a joint Young Rail Professional and ICE event at Nottingham Trent University in which I was able to present to local students about my placement experience and some of the work I have been involved with:

Skills developed

During my placement, I developed a range of both technical and soft skills. I have learnt that when working in the industry, it is vital to have both. I improved on my software skills, working in digital and BIM software, as well as improving my Microsoft office skills. My communication skills have improved, as I delivered many presentations internally and externally. This has also increased my confidence when communicating with other employees such as senior engineers. My time management skills also significantly developed as at times I was working on multiple things simultaneously whilst working to project deadlines, having to prioritise my time to navigate this.

Enjoyable moments and overview of my experience

I would say one of the most enjoyable moments would be the rail induction event in October 2023 which involved new joiners to Mott MacDonald from around the UK working in Rail. From this I got to meet a lot of new people and build connections. I also heard from several senior colleagues, learning about their different career paths and backgrounds. I felt I was supported during my placement to take up opportunities which were outside of my comfort zone, and I was given a lot of responsibility to make my own decisions on what I wanted to get out of the placement as well as how I was going to go about doing this. I definitely enjoyed my placement and would encourage anybody to do a placement at Mott MacDonald.