Industrial Placement Student Review

I did enjoy my placement. I found it an interesting place to work with really friendly people. However, the products did not interest me and so that has had an influence on my overall enjoyment. However, I certainly managed to develop my skills and experience so I would not say that it was time wasted.

I was given a lot of responsibility and praise for my efforts. There are a lot of reward systems in place to make employees feel valued for their efforts. This placement gave me an opportunity to work with a lot of different people across the business so obviously praise varies with the person you are dealing with. The jobs I was given to do added value to the business and so that was appreciated by the people that I worked with.

There is a lot of support on offer. If my manager did not know the answer to something, they would know who does. I was never left to struggle without any information. We would have regular catch ups to assess my progress and how I would go about the different tasks I had to do. If there was something I was uncomfortable doing, they would offer to do it for me, but I was generally encouraged to throw myself in at the deep end.

This fluctuates with the time of year. There were days when I was rushed off my feet and other days where I was not as busy as I would have liked. This is because a lot of projects require communication and you could end up waiting for someone else to respond to you. Fortunately there were no occasions were I was completely bogged down, which helped to keep me stimulated but not over worked. The workload is a good and steady amount, so there is no need to stay really late or come in really early every day to get it all done.

I was given a lot of responsibility. I managed two very large events and a lot of the marketing communications. There was talk of me managing a commodity but unfortunately the product was not released in time. There were a couple of menial favours I had to do, but I was never doing jobs like filing- all the jobs I did added value to the business, which was a really good motivator for me. The marketing tools I created would go on to be used across the company on a global scale.

The skills were very useful and will certainly be used in future. I am now a better communicator, organizer and executor- all of which will stand me in better stead for my final year at uni and beyond. There were lots of training opportunities for me to enlist on as well and although not all of them were that engaging, they were useful in certain respects. Generally, the skills I developed from being in real business situations were the ones that will assist me going forward.

The atmosphere changes with each department but it is generally very social and friendly. There are regular events on and often something new happening for people to talk about. However, it is a business and so there were a lot of silent occasions were people were getting on with their work or projects were becoming frustrating. This could sometimes hamper the mood. I did really like the fact that pretty much everyone that is hired is a nice person, that makes a difference.

It was well organised. There are regular training and development days for the placement students which was a good way to get to know each other. The induction is well put together, everything is put together for you on your first week and you just have to show up and learn. There are lots of different ways to track progress and development, although there is impetus on the student to put this together- although it is encouraged.

They invested a lot of time into developing me- a lot of employees are former placement students, so they want to retain the talent. There are a lot of days dedicated to making you more proactive, more efficient, a better networker and similar things like that. Financially they also cover a lot of days out of the office quite generously, which covers transport, food, accomodation etc.

For me they are not appealing for the near future as the products do not jump out at me or interest me. However, future employment with this company does have appealing aspects as it is well paid and has lots of opportunities for development/ change. There are also a lot of perks to the job. From a personal perspective, it doesn't appeal in the near future.

The scene is generally quite good. There is about 13 students on the Bracknell site, and so it is down to them to organise socials amongst themselves. Lunch is fairly social and a good way to get to know eachother. We went to Ascot racecourse as a group and a few bar crawls, but the previous year went to Dublin and Ibiza- so it depends on who is in the group! There is a big push at the start of the year to get socials organised.

The main office is not too far from London, and so prices reflect that, but it depends where you go. Reading is very close to the office and where most students live and that is a fairly cheap area as it is student dominated. The further east you go, the more expensive it gets but there is very little in the way of entertainment between Bracknell and London. Living (In Reading) is fairly cheap in comparison to other parts of the south, but is obviously quite expensive for those who are used to living in the north.

There is absolutely nothing in Bracknell in the way of nightlife. There are some pubs that do a nice lunch and that is it. Fortunately, most people just commute to Bracknell. Reading has a really good nightlife, it has a lot of bars and pubs as it wouldn't be as popular a place if it wasn't for the uni. Getting to London is not difficult and I don't need to say much about that. I would recommend not living in Bracknell and commuting from somewhere more lively.

There are a lot of sports and social clubs outside of work. There is a competitive football team, fun football team, touch rugby, cycling and plenty of other activities and clubs. They also host days in the office area. I attended an open air cinema at the office and had the chance to go to other family events at the weekends and evenings, such as pub quizzes and plays. So long as you become social with the placement students, there will be plenty of opportunities to do things outside of work.