Summer intern Review

The reason I took this summer internship was to get some relevant work experience before I started applying for jobs of an engineering nature. This definitely ticked that box, and I had an enjoyable 10 weeks whilst I was here. The sector I was working in was nuclear energy - something that I hadn't anticipated or planned I would be doing when I started uni; I hadn't even taken any nuclear specific modules. Still, I secured the job via phone interview, and spent the 10 weeks getting involved in real project work, for real clients, with real deadlines!

When I arrived I was assigned to a particular team within the company. There were about 6 of us, so it was quite a small intimate team where everyone knew and talked to everyone else, and offered help and support when needed. There was also another summer intern who was about 2 weeks ahead of me! In terms of feeling valued, I felt I was valued at just the right amount. I fully understood that I was the youngest, least experienced, least qualified person on the team and so I wouldn't be getting amazing work, but I also didn't want to just be on coffee-duty, fetching drinks for people! As it turned out, I found the team to be very nice and supportive, and they gave me a list of several jobs that were part of larger projects that I could choose to work on. My sense of "value" was reassured as I found just how real these projects were, and how the work I was doing would actually be helpful to the company, and not just "boring tasks to keep me busy".

Support and guidance was something I felt I needed a lot of when I joined. My first task involved designing something that used pressurised gas, and so I had to read and understand schematic drawings of existing pipework. Needless to say, this was something that I hadn't come across and so it took me a while to work out what the lines I was looking at actually meant. The choices I had were to begin googling and teach myself, or ask around and see who could teach me - something that I was initiallly reluctant to do as everyone was seemingly very busy with their own jobs and I didn't want to annoy people with questions that may seem trivial to them. I did decide to ask people though, and I was really pleased with the responses I got. When my manager was around he would help out if he could, or if not, direct me to someone who could. Each person I asked was very approachable about it, and gave me the time of day to talk me through what I needed help with. I found out as I went on that that sort of helpful behaviour was typical of my team and proved to be very useful.

As I mentioned in a previous comment, I was initially given a list of jobs to choose from. This meant that as I working through my current task at the time, I was aware that there was always more for me to get on with if I finished, and so I never felt as though there was nothing to do. Conversely I never felt as if I was being overloaded with work. There was never an occasion where I either had to, or felt like I had to, take work home with me to make more progress, and there was always time to take a lunch break away from my desk. Points out of 10 were lost because when I started, the first half week was taken up with sorting out computer accounts, downloading software, installing updates etc. and so it took a while for me to actually get into doing work.

The structure of the company I was working in was very hierarchical: everyone and their boss had another boss, and any bit of work had to be checked, approved, verified, checked again, finalised etc. As such, I was not massively responsible for anything other than my immediate work. If I was given a job, I would get on with it as best I could, and I was only responsible for working on it. There was the occasional deadline to work towards, and so i was responsible for my own time-keeping, but in such a regulated industry (nuclear energy) it was quite understandible that things were how they were.

I hadn't had any experience working in an engineering office before, and so a lot of what I was learning was very new to me. It definitely helped me in becoming a more employable graduate though, and gave me a lot of material to talk about in job applications/interviews.

The general atmosphere was fine. It was definitely a work-environment though; everyone was wearing suits, or at least looking very smart, people were seemingly busy most of the time typing on computers/making calls/having meetings, and so I felt as though I too should be constantly 'doing something' in order to fit in. That said, things did change over the weeks depending on the day of the week and the workload. On Fridays we only worked for half a day, and could wear home clothes so things felt a lot more relaxed - and also, it was a Friday! Then if a major project was imminently about to finish people would be busier, and perhaps more stressed.

Points are lost for not having computer accounts setup for when I arrived, which was frustrating. Also due to a technical mix-up I was actually rejected from the summer internship when I first applied! I was disappointed and moved on to researching other companies until a week or so later I got another call saying they hadn't heard from me in a while and was I still interested! I had to explain that I had been rejected by them (which was news to the person on the phone) but we talked it out and I said I was still interested, they apologised and then offered me the placement. So not the smoothest application, but I got it nonethless. I was at least expected on the morning of my first day, and had been in email contact with the company so I knew what to do and could ask any questions I had, so that's a plus.

I would say that I didn't recieve much training since I was only there for the summer, and the company had no guarantee that I would be coming back to them when I graduated. I was trained up in areas that would help me in my day-to-day tasks at the company, e.g. using specific cad programs, but no official courses or anything.

For me, I was actually offered a job at the end of my placement, so 10/10 haha! I still had to go through interviews, online aptitude tests, and do a presentation, but I skipped other steps such as the assessment centre since I had worked in a team for 10 weeks which was a much better indicator as to how I would get on. I believe the competetiveness is quite high to get in if you just apply for the job straight up, but your chances are greatly improved if you do an internship - as I found out!

Not really. There was only 3 interns (myself included) when I did my placement, and we all lived fairly far away from eachother. I found at that the graduates there had a 5-a-side football club which was offered to me, but since I'm not a footballer I didn't join in. I could imagine that if we were all working there full time, and lived in the same city things would be different, but in my case the job wasn't massively social.

I lived at home with my parents and commuted in every day, so the living cost isn't applicable to me. In terms of socialising, Leicester is fairly standard as far as cities go. You "shop around" and find the less expensive bars, and there's stuff like bowling and laser quest pretty nearby.

I didn't go out clubbing or anything in the evenings when I was there, so I can't say. I found that at the end of the day I was pretty tired, so I just ended up going straight home, and saving up energy for the weekends when I could go to places where my friends were (closer back to uni). I'd imagine it's fairly standard though since Leicester is a big city, so there'll be lots going on if you know where to go.

As I said previously, there was a 5-a-side football team that was run by some of the graduates, but other than that, I didn't hear about anything else.