Industrial placement Review

I learned a lot during the year but I felt that I could have been given more relevant or meaningful work than I did. There were ups and downs as with any job. I learnt a lot from talking to people around the office and from the friends that I made.

I made some good friends in the company but in the department that I was working in I did not feel very valued. I spent a lot of my time chasing up people at the request of my manager rather than doing things relevant to my degree, a lot of the staff commented on this.

My manager would go through systems with me sometimes which would be very helpful. If I asked a question then he would answer it. A lot of the work was more admin like though, which I did not feel was particularly helpful to my studies. I would have preferred more project work.

Sometimes I would be incredibly busy and other times I would have very little to do. It was highly dependent on who was on site. I was often left twiddling my thumbs, and a lot of my job was organising visits and meetings. I would use a lot of the down time to learn about different systems.

I had the freedom to go about the plant unaided and had responsibility for visitors coming on site and their paperwork so in that sense I was given responsibility, but was not given projects etc. I would have liked to have gained more relevant experience to what I would be doing in a proper job but the department that I was in did not really allow for that.

I learnt a lot during the year. It was great being able to go look at components and systems that I have learnt about during the course of my degree. I also had access to technical drawings of plant and system information, which was very helpful in gaining a full understanding. I did several training courses which have asked my understanding of things as well and gained a lot of general knowledge of power plants.

It was only me and my manager in the office due to the department I was in. Most of the time it was just silence. The other offices were a lot more interesting, hearing people's discussions about work they are doing, and learning from others. I think I would have enjoyed my placement more if I'd been around more people.

Recruitment were very kind and helpful but the beginning of the placement was rather disorganised. I had to chase up my own training. A lot of my work was odds and ends and chasing people up about their work. Training courses were well organised when you got to them and the training department was very knowledgeable and helpful.

I did several training courses while I was on my placement, some of them very interesting such as the fuel route story, which explained everything about the fuel cycle before, at, and after the station. We then went on a tour to see all the relevant parts. I also did other interesting ones which covered subjects such as corrosion.

A lot of us would go out on the weekends and evenings and also have lunch together. People at the company are generally very kind and helpful and most quite social. There are a lot of young people from the grad scheme as well, so the social scene is quite good.

It was not as cheap as home but Ashford isn't too expensive an area, especially compared to other edf locations in the south. The price of food in the canteen certainly helped, you could get a full hot meal for less than £4 and it was decent quality food. With a network rail card, travel wasn't too bad.

Canterbury has a decent nightlife and there's a lot of people who are interested in going out. You can get the train there and a taxi back isn't too bad if there's enough of you going. Ashford wasn't as good for nightlife but there are nice places to eat and there's a cineplex with plenty of restaurants etc.