Product development - Design Review

I really enjoyed my placement at Caterpillar due to the fact I was given real responsibilities and interesting projects to work on. I was working in design and had the opportunity to use computer aided design every day and produce / modify engineering drawings which I found very interesting and enjoyable.

Early on in my placement there was a lot to learn which can feel like you are bit of a pain having to ask so many questions but my colleagues were pretty understanding. As time went on and I had shown my competency to my colleagues I found I was able to produce valued work for them which was noticed and acknowledged.

My supervisor was usually available throughout the week to talk to should I have any issues, or to ask for more work. I had a short weekly meeting with my supervisor / manager to run through what I had done that week and any issues I had or any questions I wanted to ask.

It varied throughout the year. There were times when I would have multiple projects at once to balance my time allocation. I was relatively busy on a daily basis but there were occasional patches where I was between projects and having to ask for small jobs to fill my time. This year was a little quiet as there was a lull in incoming projects.

I was working in design and given a reasonable amount of responsibility, using computer aided design every day to produce / modify engineering drawings. Due to the low volume production of the product I was working with it gave me more scope for independence and allowed usage of my knowledge to find solutions to problems.

My skills in creating computer aided design models and drawings has greatly increased. The basics are taught at university but the details I have learnt on dimensioning and tolerancing will be of great use whenever I have to produce engineering drawings in the future. Seeing where I can go with my degree will push me on to complete it and go into a similar graduate job.

The placement was relatively well organised. There was no real defined structure to my placement but the facility had been hosting placements for many years so they understood how much I could take on. I was given projects to last me a couple of months to work on now and again along with work designed to help me learn (in depth) the use of computer aided design and the production of engineering drawings.

Caterpillar offers a variety of online training for its employees which I completed when I had some free time to expand my knowledge. This was of my own accord so without this I was not required to do a huge amount of industry relevant training. If I were a graduate I imagine I would have gone on more paid for training but it seems unnecessary for them to pay for my training when I leave within a year.

Future employment prospects are very tempting to me as I have enjoyed my placement very much. I foresee myself enjoying this job if I were able to get a job offer after university. I liked the people I worked with and could see myself being at Caterpillar for a long time.

Shrewsbury was relatively expensive in some ways but with some searching the housing (with no council tax as we were still students) was reasonable. The local restaurants weren’t particularly cheap but there are lots of bars and pubs which are not too expensive and provide good quality food and drinks.