Manufacturing Engineering Intern - Civil Aerospace Review

I had a fantastic time during my 6 month placement - I was given a large project selected to occupy the majority of my time with frequent opportunities to be involved in other, smaller projects. I felt like I had a lot of responsibility and resources invested into my project.

I had a great team I felt I could rely on to help me complete my major project and I had weekly technical reviews on project progress to communicate tasks completed and gain help or escalation where necessary. I was introduced to many people during my time and many would take the time to explain what their work involved and offered advice on my work.

My supervisor was firm but very fair and expected high quality work - he would give me just enough information to start a task and expect me to digest this before asking for further resources or contacts, allowing me to learn to be concise and get to the point quickly as he was extremely busy. If I ever had any problems he would assist me in finding a solution after he was sure I'd had a reasonable attempt at solving it myself. By the end of the placement I felt that I had an excellent working relationship with my manager and would hope to work with him again.

Due to the nature of my project, with some tasks relying on other people, there were some quiet days in my workweek which I would often ask my manager to help fill by giving me further tasks. I felt that my work was well balanced for the majority of the time despite these occasional quiet days.

I was assigned a project manager role to develop methods of cost reduction for an external supplier and develop tooling to achieve this - I would frequently drive up to visit the supplier, representing Rolls-Royce and felt that a lot of trust was placed in me.

I felt that my communication and confidence improved greatly as a result of working for Rolls-Royce, I delivered weekly technical presentations and communicated my team and external suppliers on a frequent basis. I learned how to be concise and write effective technical reports to convey critical information. I am now in my final year of study at university and these skills have been immensely useful in coursework and I foresee them continuing to be useful once I graduate and join an engineering company.

The office was large with many teams situated around me - all working on different projects. I felt comfortable approaching anybody in the office with questions or queries I had. There were fun events often to raise money for charity such as bake-offs and charity fancy dress.

Rolls-Royce has a well developed intern programme which I presume has been running for quite some time as the whole process from applying through to being assigned a manager was very smooth and professional with good communication of what I should expect throughout. Training programmes were also well organised and I attended several training events during my time.

Rolls-Royce operates a development review scheme where you periodically sit down with your manager to review progress against initial objectives and highlight areas for improvement and areas that you have succeeded in. There were so many opportunities to explore extra-curricular areas of the business not relevant to the immediate project such as seeing manufacturing facilities and new processes.

I have been offered a graduate and development scheme within the company at the time of writing this.

There is a large annual intake of interns, apprentices and graduates who all interact through various social streams with organised events such as paintball, go-karting and weekly sport sessions. Outside of work was also very sociable.

I was based in Derby, East Midlands for my placement and found costs to be very reasonable for both living and socialising.

The nightlife was satisfactory with many pubs and bars but not many nightclubs.

Absolutely, the graduates, apprentices and interns interact often as members of a joint association to organise social events including things like paintball and go-karting.