Summer Intern engineer Review

My time at Atkins gave me a true insight into work life at Atkins. At no point was I expected to do anything that they wouldn't pay an actual engineer to do.

Each job or scheme has a team of people that work on it. Whichever job I worked on I was alongside both newly graduated engineers and senior members of staff. Everyone was welcoming and didn't for a second treat me any differently to any other member of the team. This was great as it meant that they still entrusted me with important work and the responsibilities of a full time employee. A good example of the respect from the team was that if I put forward a suggestion for something, it would equally be considered alongside inputs from the rest of the team.

Absolutely brilliant. The manager at the office I was at was so supportive and encouraging of me to make the best decisions and to help me make the most out of my internship and the relationship that I subsequently built up with Atkins.

Due to the nature of the work taken on in the department I was in and the fact that I was trusted with plenty of things I was kept busy pretty much all the time which is great as the time absolutely flew by.

As mentioned before I was given a good amount of the tasks that my buddy ( a term they use for the person that oversees your internship (pretty good set up, was quite handy)) would also have had to do if I were not there. I was encouraged to make relationships with clients and contractors alike as any normal engineer would.

I got the chance to use a lot of the knowledge from a couple of the modules I had taken in first and second year of university and was able to broaden my knowledge and skills on a whole set of software that had not until then been available to me.

Good working environment. Atkins takes on a great amount of newly graduated people and so you end up with a brilliant environment with the liveliness of young engineers held together with the knowledge and experience of more senior engineers. My project manager was a great laugh too and was excellent and bonding the team together.

As can be expected from a large company such as this, the whole process had been done hundreds of times before and was easy to get on with straight away. An induction booklet helps you get through all the necessities and the buddy style system means you always have someone you can ask about things.

The company almost treated me like a full time employee and are keen to carry on progressing me with the firm.

Atkins seem to take on loads of newly graduated engineers. One thing I did tend to hear was that they are normally very keen to have people on work experience and Internships to then progress into work as the managers can get a good idea of what you are like before you are employed so if you were to consider working for Atkins I would definitely recommend doing a few weeks work experience or getting an internship.

Within the broadly younger team there were great social events and even a dedicated group of people who are allocated to organise social events. Really good.

Bristol is an expensive place to live if you are in the city, but I gather there are much cheaper places further out. Another intern I was working with was living relatively cheaply in the student halls over summer so that is definitely a good potential place to live.

Bristol nightlife is world class.

Yes but during my relatively short internship I didn't get to experience very many