Design Engineer Review

I have really enjoyed my time here at Cummins. It has been a pleasure to work here and I felt very welcome from the start and throughout. I have been very happy with the way I have been treated as a placement student and the work I have been doing. It has been an invaluable experience.

I felt valued by my colleagues and respected by my colleagues. I felt as if I was treat the same as a permanent employee. I feel this is because Cummins has been employing placement students for a long time so the process is completely normal and everyone knows what to expect from you.

I felt like I was given support throughout my placement. As I mentioned in the above, the process is very normal for Cummins and therefore everything is already in place for you to do well. Another part of this is also the fact that everyone I spoke to was willing to help with any questions I had.

I was busy on a regular basis but not with boring work which was the same every day. The work I was doing was real work for the company and had real responsibility. I also had meetings for teams that I was involved in or meetings for work. I also had training fairly often which was very useful for my placement.

I was given a lot of responsibility during my placement, and a lot more than I was expecting. I was the only designer on most of my projects and had full responsibility of the work I completed. This made me learn quickly. However I would like to mention that if I needed support or asked for it during these projects, it was always there.

As mentioned before, I feel this year has been invaluable to me, and the skills I have gained will help me massively. Whether that is getting through the final year at university or getting a job after my final year. Some of the training I will remember and carry forward for many years to come.

The atmosphere in the office was a great one. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming. If I ever needed any help all I had to do was to find someone and ask. I felt I got on really well with everyone in the office, and it was great to get to know them all.

The placement was very well set up, and as I mentioned before Cummins have been offering these placements for a long time, and I feel that it shows. With around 30 of us being taken on, training was organised well too, with all of us doing it at the same time.

I feel that the firm invested a lot in me and all of us as placement students. This was because we received a lot of time and training to get us up to our level now, but also training such as team based work systems that helped us understand working within a team, where we also got our Forte profile.

Future employment is very attractive as I enjoy the work and I get on with the people here. I also think that the company really cares about you and are willing to invest in you. The IMechE MPDS scheme is also supported here as I have just completed the first year of MPDS.

There was a great social scene around my colleagues, although I was mainly involved in the football scene and the go karting championship that was taking place. Both were thoroughly enjoyable and I met some great new friends while going. The go karting was taken more seriously than the football however!

I didn’t actually live in Daventry while I was working at Cummins. I lived in Coventry and commuted each day which was around half an hour. However the cost of living much like anywhere else really. For socialising however, it was cheap due to the university nights out and things of that nature.

I didn’t experience a lot of the nightlife in Daventry while on my placement, I had heard stories that there wasn’t too many places to go and it is often relatively quiet. However when we went out for a football social we all had a great time afterwards, so I can’t complain.

There were many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work. Cummins have a scheme called EEEC (Every employee every community). I did this twice. First I went to a food bank and helped out, and secondly I painted fences at a dog rehoming centre. I found these enjoyable and a really good thing to do.