Summer Placement Hardware Engineering Review

The placement was very enjoyable: colleagues were friendly and ready to help, and the environment was relaxed and I didn't feel under pressure. There were also plenty of other interns in different departments who would meet up. The work itself was interesting, and we were involved enough in meeting etc. to feel that we were doing work that was useful and usable.

Colleagues were all friendly and approachable - willing to help if I had questions. When working on something where I needed input from its original designer, they were quick to respond or direct me to the right place to get what I needed

My supervisor was very friendly and always seemed happy to help. I had no problems getting along with him and any work problems I had were generally quickly resolved with his guidance.

I had plenty of work to do most of the time, however there were some points while running tests/simulations where I had little to do - however often I was able to find other small tasks to do in this time.

I was able to directly modify the code in our main branch, however understandably I couldn't submit directly and instead passed changes to another engineer to verify the changes and submit them with the correct protocol if they were worth doing.

This was my second placement at Imagination, so some of the tools/languages I had encountered before. That being said, using these more this summer allowed me to gain further familiarity and learn new things about them - which should help me with some relevant modules at university. I was doing a different task to last year, so there were new tools I also encountered which could come in handy in future similar jobs.

The people in my office were very friendly, and the atmosphere reflected that. The office was open plan which meant it felt colleagues were more accessible and free to discuss things - and although of course we were expected to get our work done, people could take time out and chat.

The company is well set up for placements, there are a number of placement students across many different departments, with varying placement lengths. On the first day of work there was an orientation and introduction to the company, and in the weeks after, newer interns had training as needed.

This was my second time here, so any tools I used requiring training had been trained for last year. I was doing a different task, and the concepts/tools used were explained and demonstrated by my supervisor. They were also often happy to help out if I came across an error I hadn't encountered before.

Many graduate employees did a placement at the company in the past, and placement students also often return for more years of placement at the company, so hopefully prospects are good for future work within it.

It was easy to get along with colleagues, a large group of us would have lunch together, and every Friday we would go to the pub for lunch. The placement students also met up, almost every week, for lunch and occasionally the pub.

I was living at home (which is nearby) so the cost of living was very low for me (except that I still was paying rent for my uni home - but one rent is better than two). The pubs nearby to work itself were on the expensive side, perhaps around or slightly less than London prices.

Around the area there are some things to do however the best thing to do would probably be to go to London, which isn't that far by train.

There was a sports and social club which organised events outside of work - there was a discount if you were a member of this club otherwise they were full/slightly discounted price. There were also sports and other events organised by employees which anyone could get involved in.