Operations summer placement Review

I applied to this placement because I wanted to get some industry experience and I was definitely able to get that as I was based at Easington, a Centrica Storage asset. It was unfortunate that the plant wasn't live during my placement but I was able to see a lot of the things that I had learnt about at university in practice and was able to get a better idea of what operations involves.

I got on really well with my colleagues. Whenever I sat in meetings, they always asked for my opinion and were more than happy to take time to explain new concepts to me. My line manager also gave me projects that would result in improvements and changes to the current process which made me feel valued as an employee.

My line manager was excellent at giving me support and guidance throughout the placement. He always highlighted any learning opportunities like different meetings that were coming up or introducing me to people who would be able to help me with my projects. There was also a HSES graduate at the terminal and she was incredibly helpful. She helped me find my way around the terminal and answered a lot of my questions. She was also able to share a lot of information about the Centrica grad scheme and was able to provide me with useful feedback about presentation.

I definitely got more busier as time went on. At the start, because I was familiarising with the process and getting used to the different resources that I had to use, progress was slow. But as I began to understand the process better and knew where to look for information and who to ask, I was able to make significant progress and therefore felt much busier. Towards the end of the placement, preparing for the final presentation and completing the progress document also took up quite a bit time.

I was given two large projects during my placement. These were projects that would result in direct changes or improvements to the current systems and procedures so they were fairly important. I was responsible for writing up all the technical documentation required to implement the changes, therefore I had to use all my resources to find all the information I needed to complete these. This meant I had to go down to the control room to talk to the operators about the current procedures and talk to different people in my team in order to develop my understanding of the process. My line manager trusted me with these projects and allowed me to explore my options and develop my network in order to find the information I needed,

The skills I developed will be massively useful for my final year at university as I will have to complete a design project which is all about designing all aspects of a chemical process. Having used process flow diagrams and P&IDs to navigate around the plant, observed hazard review meetings and gained more awareness about process operations, I think I am in a better position to make engineering decisions in my work. This experience will also be useful for me in my future career, especially if I pursue a career in operations. I also gained lots of transferable skills such as interpersonal skills from talking to operations technicians and engineers and organisation skills from organising meetings and balancing different projects, which will be useful for university and in my future career.

The terminal atmosphere is very friendly and positive. Everyone was very welcoming and happy to help.

The placement could have been a bit better organised. Since I was based up in Hull, it was very time consuming to keep travelling down to Windsor for all of the training events. It would have been far more effective to have a training week with all the events as I felt like the travelling impeded the progress of my projects. I felt the placement itself could have also been a lot more organised. When completing my progress document at the end of the placement, my line manager began to mention a lot more things that I could have got involved with, however since I was unaware, it became too late. So perhaps ensure that when you sit down with your manager at the start of the placement, you find out as much information as possible about what you can do to ensure that you get the most out of your experience. Since I was placed within Centrica Storage, instead of Centrica, this meant there were a lot of issues regarding IS. For example, CSL placement students were left off a lot of emails and we were unable to access MyTravel to book travel to and from Windsor, I think greater effort should be made to ensure that all placement students get the same experience. I was also not given a laptop for my placement so I was unable to access any emails outside of the office which made it difficult to maintain communication with the grad team or my line manager when I was away from the office.

The company did not invest anything in particular for my training and development. However many were willing to accommodate me during meetings and reviews so that I could expand my knowledge and understanding of the process.

There are opportunities for process engineers within Centrica but this seems to be somewhat limited. However, the grad scheme sounds like an amazing opportunity and Centrica do show a lot of interest and willingness to develop chartered engineers from their graduate intake.

There was a good social scene amongst fellow placement students and colleagues. There were 4 summer placement students in Hull and we got on really well, although our schedules meant that we didn't get to spend much time together. The graduates often organised events like dinners, games night, bowling etc and this was a great way to meet more people. Whenever interns came to visit the terminal, we also went our for dinner together.

Cost of living is fairly cheap, especially compared to London where I'm from. We were living in an apartment by the Marina and that's quite an expensive area, as expected, but if you go a bit further out, socialising and nights out will be a lot cheaper.

Night life was pretty good in Hull. I didn't get to go out much because I was spending a lot of weekends in London but when we did go out, there was a good vibe.

There was plenty of opportunities to get involved with activities outside of work. As I mentioned before, the grads made an effort to organise socials. And the HSES grad based at the terminal was happy to explore Hull with me so we went on a couple of nice countryside walks.