Electronics Engineer Placement Student (Quality, Reliability and Product Support) Review

I really enjoyed my placement year at Caterpillar. Everyday involved doing something different. My problem solving skills have greatly improved. Everbody in the workplace is extremely friendly and always willing to help or have a chat. I was made to fell very welcomed in the office and enjoyed working with everyone.

I felt valued by my colleagues as I was given appropriate levels of responsibility and a lab/ testing room to manage and keep maintained. I felt that all the work I was given had some sort of value to the team and company and was never just given meaningless tasks. Everyone was extremely friendly.

My manager and team leader were always available if I ever need support or guidance. Extra support was made available when I started my placement and they allowed me plenty of time to adjust to a real engineering environment. I never once felt like I was struggling as I could just ask for a bit of guidance.

I was almost always busy throughout my year at Caterpillar. I would quite often have multiple projects that would need completion, and as a result, I have greatly improved my time management skills and ability. There were occasional lulls as we provided a service, but I could always request extra tasks to fill the time.

I was given appropriate levels of responsibility for my position. Initially I was provided with a lab for testing components to manage, along with tracking components to and from suppliers until issues had been solved. As I progressed I received the responsibility for suggesting appropriate follow up testing for a supplier to carry out during a component failure investigation.

The skills I have developed will assist me a large amount in my degree. Especially my improved time management and problem solving skills. I have also learnt a new programming language and I can class myself as an advanced user of excel. I had a lot of experience in creating documentation, especially with writing test procedures.

The atmosphere was laid back and relatively casual. This was good as it made it easier to approach people for assistance and made working to deadlines less stressful. There was a good level of joking around and laughs without anything ever going over the top. It felt a very comfortable and professional environment.

I have given the organisation a rating of 7 purely because of there being a very small handover from the previous placement (half a day) as a result, it took me quite a lot longer to than it perhaps should of adjusting to the role and responsibilities. The work set out and responsibilities given were organised well.

Personal training was always available. Almost any training could be requested and was almost always be granted, the only exception being if the training requires a class and there is minimal interest throughout the office. There was a large online library of available training from using office applications at a basic level to programming in C++

I would really like to come back to CAT electronics as a graduate student. The work is good and varied and the pay is good. Being such a large and global company there are countless opportunities within in the various departments and in many countries. They are supportive of chartered engineer status and it would be a great start to a career in engineering.

Within the office there is a dedicated team called the hub who organise social activities for colleagues to get together outside of work. There are usualy a couple events each month and are often lunchtime activities such as table tennis tournaments and various themed weeks such as sports week. The other placement are friendly and we organise outings to various bars and other activities. The only downside would be the city of Peterborough itself not have that many things to do.

Peterborough is probably an average cost of living area. Rent for me is slightly higher than I would like, but this was offset for me personally by convenience, being only a 10 minute drive from the factory. The cost of socialising was about average however the price of alcohol in pubs seemed high.

The nightlife was not the best, being only one club in the city centre, however there were plenty of bars to choose from. Coming from Birmingham, Peterborough seemed to have a relatively quiet nightlife scene in comparison. There are some good places to go that offer free live music and there are quite a lot of events especially in the summer such as the beer and ale festival.

There were many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work, as once you finish for the day there was no work that would be required to be completed at home. With there being flexitime, working hours could always be shifted if necessary to accommodate for outside activities.