Power Accademy scholar Review

National Grid takes in a large number (around twenty) interns each year and holds an introduction day in March so that you can get to know each other. This basically means that all the interns form a fairly close knit community. It's very easy to get into the routine of getting into work at 8:00, leaving at 4:00, and spending the late afternoon and evening playing football in the park with the other interns. The work itself is quite interesting as well. Interns are given the choice of a plethora of possible projects. These range from the teasingly technical to the acutely administrative. I chose a technical placement and have spent the last seven weeks examining a collection of substations in Runcorn and thinking about how best to solve a number of problems they are having there.

This largely depends on your line manager, as they are the people you will have most interaction with. I have had two managers; one was very keen to praise my work and point out how useful it will be to the company, the other was more focussed on mentoring and improving my work. Because every placement, at least as far as I’m aware, is directly useful to the company, co-workers don’t treat you as a burden. From my own, and others, experience, colleagues have always been willing to help with any questions you might have and tend to be happy devoting significant portions of their time helping you learn about the company.

This year has been slightly interesting, in that, during my eight week placement, my manager has taken three weeks holiday. He has also been ill on top of that and sometimes had to work from home so he can look after his kids. Personally, I don’t mind this as I am happy to just plough on with work on my own, but I could see why this might be a problem for some people. This can also be annoying when you need to speak to outside customers and feel you shouldn’t do so without the authorisation of your line manager. My manager treats me more like a colleague than a student and we’ll often debate solutions to problems rather than him simply telling me how to go about it. It works for me, but I could see why others might struggle.

Due to the nature of the project, workload varies vastly from day to day. Entire mornings have been spent frantically talking to a dozen people via email; or drawing circuit diagrams. While entire days have been spent, with nothing to do, waiting for people to reply to emails. While people who work full time in the department have multiple projects, on the go at any one given time, to be getting on with; as an intern you constantly run the risk of running aground.

Myself and my partner were effectively left to investigate problems affecting a real part of the National Grid. This meant talking to people all across the company to ask their advice on certain issues, and pulling their advice together so that we could write a report advising people on what should be done there once we left. We were given a real problem and told to solve it like regular employees. We also got to go on a site visit on our own.

This is my second placement with the company. Last year, my placement really helped me understand the theory, and practice, behind Reactive Power. This was something I had briefly covered at Uni and would subsequently cover it in much greater detail the following year. This was a huge help as I already had a working knowledge of concepts my classmates were still struggling to grapple with. This year my placement built, mostly, on theory taught in a module I didn’t take. But I suspect that the technical skills I picked up will help me a lot in the coming years. On top of that; soft skills, such as communication and time management, are relied on heavily.

The office is fairly talkative and laid back. Although the company introduced a “hotdesk” system a few years ago, most people consistently sit at the same desks each day. I managed to, effectively, secure my own desk by ordering two large boxes of files from the archives and leaving them under my desk. Behind me sit a cluster of people who spend all day ribbing each other. They all give as good as they get and seem to enjoy each other’s company so it makes for amusing listening. People are generally friendly and willing to help if you ask; but I need to put in headphones, when I need to do actual work, so that I don’t get sucked into hour long conversations on miscellaneous trivia with the people around me.

National Grid have been running internships for years, they have most of the administrative machinery down to a tee at this point. There are however still a few annoyances. The most detrimental is that vital software if often only installed weeks into placements. This year, I needed to use Power Factory to run some simulations, but could only actually use it from week five of my eight week placement. This meant that learning how to use the software was now unfeasible. Another problem is that, even though those of us on the Power Academy return to the company summer after summer, we essentially need to re-apply to our jobs each year. This means going through the same background checks and carrying out a drugs and alcohol test each year.

People at the company are always willing to help with technical problems. The company also encourages us to go on site visits and look at different parts of the company. It’s not unusual for all the interns to be invited to a talk from one of the engineers about what their part of the company does. This year, we also all got the opportunity to visit each of the National Grid control rooms that aren’t classified as “Secret”. The company are very keen to tell us about the graduate scheme and what the benefits of working for the company in the future are.

The company has recently introduced a system whereby people can progress, to the graduate scheme, directly from internships. The graduate scheme lasts 18 months and is designed to show graduates as much of the company as possible. It’s a widely held belief that the graduate scheme is designed to set people up to go into management. I’m not sure how true this is. From what I’ve seen, people tend to do the graduate scheme and then work for the company for a few years, once they have on their CV that they have worked for National Grid for a few years, they then get jobs in other companies. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing from an employee perspective, but people are beginning to notice that more experienced engineers are leaving the company and being replaced by graduates.

The interns tend to form quite a close knit community. We regularly meet outside of work and play football in the park, enter the local pub quiz, or get absolutely smashed and spend the next day piecing together a collective memory of the night before. As we are all spread out over four houses, it’s quite easy to meet up. I can honestly say that the thing I will miss most about working here, is the people.

Rent was less than I pay at university and the company runs a free bus from the train station, in the centre of town, to the office. There are four major supermarkets within walking distance, two of which are student affordable, two of which are a little more up market. The pubs aren’t cheap, but the parks are free to drink in.

There are a few good clubs in Leamington Spa, but despite this, every night out you will end up in “Smack”. A club that is consistently voted the worst in the midlands. I’m not really a clubbing person, so I can’t really see anything wrong with the place, other than it being a club and not somewhere I’d rather be in, like a rock concert.

The company have a number of sports teams and other activities that interns are able to join. The interns tend to organise a lot for themselves as well. This year, we entered the local pub quiz, twice, and spent an afternoon canoeing. There is a free gym at work, which I frequently use, but we also get reduced membership to a larger gym in town. Some of the interns tend to go as a group and press benches and spot weights together.