Manufacturing Engineering Intern Review

The day to day job role was a bit bland since it involved a lot of document analysis. However there is plenty of opportunity to get involved in various areas of work around the sector you get assigned to; for example I ended up getting heavily involved with business improvements, and spent a lot of time number crunching and scrutinising data which was more satisfying. The office atmosphere was also amazing; the team were a really good laugh to be around and generally the atmosphere was quite chilled.

From day one I was given respect by everybody in the team, even if I was struggling to fully understand at first. Eventually over time you gain their trust and you become an invaluable member of the team capable of doing everything that a full time employee can. By the end I was running my own workshops to try and make improvements to some of the procedures.

I had 2 managers during my year placement, both of whom were incredibly supportive. Although they were busy guys they both always found amazing opportunities for me to expand my knowledge and broaden my horizons, even outside of direct engineering with a job focus completely against my day to day tasks that they needed me to complete.

I would say 90% of the time I was busy enough to make time fly by; there is always work to be done on a daily basis so there is rarely a dull moment. At times where work gets a bit slow there is always opportunity to go and learn something else by helping somebody else out - they really encourage you to learn as much as possible, even in other business areas.

Quite a lot; my job involved checking repair procedures carried out by external suppliers in order to ensure the parts were repaired correctly. I was never allowed to sign off the documents myself but by the end I was trusted to do a good enough job that another employee would sign it off without batting an eyelid.

Personally I don't think the work I did on placement really helped me with my degree studies. The work was relatively specific to the job at hand in the office and so I became very knowledgeable in that particular sector. I did learn a fair bit about repair techniques but never got the hands on experience to really enforce my learning.

There were some high stress days near to the end of each month where targets needed to be met and things got a bit hectic, but this just keeps you busy. Aside from these odd occasions the office was always pleasant to come to - there was rarely a moment I didn't want to turn up.

Very well - It is difficult for HR to know exactly how well you will like the work you will end up doing bu they always assign you to a manager to has specifically requested assistance with a specific set of tasks, so they will always make time to help you develop and improve. The scheme is set up in such a way that you can select specific areas to work in to help you get involved with work that you will find pleasant.

Massively, I don't even want to think about how much money it cost the company to send me on the training sessions. I became a qualified lean six sigma practitioner, which you are not supposed to achieve until graduate scheme level, so the company is clearly not shy of sending you to relevant training programmes in order to ensure you achieve your goals during your time there.

Well I've got a job on the graduate scheme, so clearly appealing enough. There is so much opportunity to learn all sorts, not just about engineering, throughout the organisation. There are opportunities to travel and the financial benefits considering this is an engineering company are fantastic.

On day one they introduce all the interns together and set up a pub night straight away, Everybody meets up, socialises and networks from day one. It becomes easy to meet up at lunch, a lot of the interns live together and there is a team of apprentices/graduates in charge of arranging all sorts of fun events for the intern body.

Derby was very cheap relative to anywhere South in England - my rent was £330 a month and that was considered expensive.

Derby was always a great laugh on the weekends, and Nottingham is a very short ride away - taxis are so ridiculously cheap that it becomes too easy to miss out. The huge amount of interns makes it easy to always have a great night out on most weekends.

Yes, the company has a rugby team, although I am not sure of any other activities - I'm sure they have a lot.