Design Engineer inter Review

I personally enjoyed my placement massively. The range of project and level of responsibility I felt I was given, on some projects especially, made work fulfilling and therefore enjoyable. Although product design was what I studied I found the challenge of mechanical engineering and design engineering projects to be just as enjoyable. The projects were not always straight forward and often there were unseen issues which got frustrating but overall the year was great.

This was really dependant on the project I was working, there were definitely parts of the work where I felt I had more influences than other tasks and therefore felt more valued working on these. At no point did I feel undervalued and for a position as junior a placement student I did feel like I was given a lot of responsibility

The support and guidance at Cat was great. I felt I could talk with pretty much anyone I was working along side. The company had a good support structure for placement and grads. My manager was really helpful in getting me involved in projects that challenged me and met my placement criteria.

The first month did feel quite slow but I think this is to be expected. After this pretty much every day was busy and varied. The atmosphere never felt that intense but there was consistently plenty or work to do and this, 9/10 it was work that felt valuable.

Really quite a lot. I was surprised about the amount of responsibility I was given on some project although my progress and the progress of the project was always well monitored it did feel as if I was given a good amount of decision making myself and able to direct my own work and tasks.

From an engineering and design point of view I think I have developed skills that will certainly be beneficial when going back to uni and further ahead in my career. For example I now feel much more confident design functional sheet metal parts and I received great training on engineering drawings. I do feel however the most significant skill I have developed is project management and organisation which I think will be extremely helpful come final year at uni.

The general atmosphere was surprisingly relaxed and normally really helpful. My department especially was very welcoming and everyone in it was easy to work with and supported me on a range of project. The office is quite large and split into two product groups so interaction between each side is not always common but most people are willing to help when needed.

The placement scheme was great, grads and placement students met every 2/3 weeks for discussions and you could tell that the company had good experience with placement students. There was consistently projects to get involved in. Probably the most noticeable part of the set-up is the mentors for professional accreditation that are assigned to you to assist in reports for IMECHE/IED etc.

Cat put a big emphasis on professional membership and supporting you through this. They were happy to pay for my membership fee to the Institute of engineering designs and through my mentor supported me through the process of joining and becoming chartered. Training was also available and the company again put me through print reading, bolted joint and geometric tolerancing training.

It is difficult to say, I would happily take a grad scheme job with CAT as that also seems like a pretty well refined set up with great opportunities and benefits. The only real downside I could see from a personal point of view is the sometimes limited chance to do complete new designs due to difficult market conditions.

There was a good social side to the grad and placement scheme with quite a lot of out of hour’s activities such as kayaking, badminton, nights out and going to the local pub. This was probably less than I thought it would be but it is what you make of it most people are usually willing to get involved. The fact that there was so much interaction with other placement students and graduates meant the whole year was pretty friendly.

I found the cost of living in Leicester really reasonable with rent at 330 for a shared house with a large double room and general pricing pretty cheap compared to back home in the south west. I spent most of my time between Leicester and Birmingham where I am at uni and did not really notice a big difference in either place. Overall really reasonable.

On the few nights out I went on in Leicester I was pleasantly surprised it is a good city at night especially when the football or rugby is on. It is really easy to get to bigger cities such as Birmingham or Nottingham for other nights out as well which I tended to do more often.

Amongst the placement and graduates there was quite often a chance to get involved in sport or other activities out of work. There was also work related projects such as STEM ambassador visits to schools and getting involved in Lego league and junior engineer.