Electrical Engineering sponsorship scheme Review

I enjoyed working at Jaguar Land Rover over the summer, it's a 12 week placement which is long but it allows you to be fully immersed into the company so that you don't feel like an intern by the end. The work was enjoyable and the office environment good too, particularly in my team, this however did change between offices.

I felt valued by my colleagues as an individual. My work wasn't particularly relevant to a lot of people on my team so for most of the placement I felt less valuable to the team's work. I supported them whenever I could in small tasks but only saw my value work wise at the end of the placement when I was complimented on it.

I was given support when I asked for it from my manager and others on the team. However, it sometimes felt that I asked for the support slightly too late. It was probably my fault but my supervisors weren't asking me regularly are things going ok? which I guess is just a part of the working world.

As is almost always the case with internships, there were days and occasionally weeks (mainly right at the start) where I wasn’t busy and was almost sat twiddling my thumbs. There were things for me to do, but it was self-learning that had no impact on the company. However, most of the time I had plenty to do and many of the undergraduates found the same as me.

I was given a good level of responsibility. I completed two projects which were really useful to the company and the two managers the work was for were very happy with the results. I also organised testing for one of my colleague’s cars which was a fair amount of responsibility. In all these things I never had so much responsibility that I was scared that any mistake would have serious repercussions while feeling I had contributed in a significant way.

I gained skills in computing, specifically in VBA and SharePoint, which I’m sure will be useful elsewhere. Otherwise, general skills relating to an office environment and how to adapt to office culture, meetings skills, emails etc. were valuable and I am confident they will be useful in my career later on. Little of the skills I gained were relevant to my degree but that is my fault for applying to an Electrical Engineering scheme and then specialising in Mechanical Engineering.

The atmosphere was quite variable, it depends a lot on the individual team members, I had a fairly loud fun team and no-one would have told us off or anything like that, but others were often quieter.

It's a fairly slick operation, there are a few different schemes: the standard placement, Electrical Engineering or women in Engineering sponsorship schemes. HR got a bit confused with the difference between them sometimes and HR told me my manager was the person above my actual manager which caused a couple of difficulties, but that wasn't common among the undergraduates.

There is a brilliant employee training scheme. I got £120 towards an advanced driving course, other undergraduates got money to learn some water-skiing or other sports, even bricklaying etc. The company run loads of training courses for specific jobs and roles internally too, which they were very happy for undergraduates to go on, for example Linux, CAD and 6 sigma.

The company is growing fast and although the company doesn't have as secure a future as some engineering companies such as utility companies or consultancies, it promises to be a great place to work providing JLR are still making cars in twenty years. After the Grad-scheme the opportunities to move up the ladder are good. This does all depend on how fast the company grows but if it as successful as it's planning to be there will be a lot of jobs available in the future.

Most of the undergraduates live in Liberty Point, Coventry, which JLR suggested. This is a really good setup because it creates a great space for people to meet and hang out in the evenings. There was undergraduate football set up for every Wednesday, drinks on Thursday night and a good group of people went out every Friday night. I had my birthday three weeks in and knew people well enough to have a really good evening out with them.

It's pretty cheap, my rent was £82 a week, going out isn't too expensive either. But I did spend a fair bit of money on diesel as the commute from Coventry to Gaydon was 22 miles, with lift shares it worked out at about £2 a day, when driving on your own it was more like £8. I also spent a bit on travel to see friends and family on a few of the weekends.

No-one has ever claimed Coventry to be the party capital of the midlands let alone the UK but there was enough for an internship for sure.

I joined a local tennis club, gym and church, and there were loads of social things with the other undergrads too, a few friends even went rock-climbing, paint-balling, skiing and wake-boarding. I went with friends to watch ice-hockey matches, rugby matches and to the cinema, there's loads to do.