Quality Vehicle Coordinator Review

My placement was an incredible experience and the skills that I have learnt as a result of it will set me up very well for a career post-university.

As a student most of your suggestions for the department's improvement and progression are taken into consideration when making choices, if you actively participate in discussions.

My manager was a great form of support if I had an issue understanding something new, wanted to find out more about the company in general or if I needed to know who to contact in a given situation.

My workload varied on a daily basis. How busy I was varied with factors like production volumes and product quality. I always had something to occupy my time.

I was responsible for coordinating issues found during the dynamic audit process. This often resulted in me, along with my direct manager, making decisions on how to react to deviations from customer expectations.

I was trained in a number of different areas including; company processes, H&S, fire extinguishers and ecological & defensive driving. This training will be easily replicated in many different environments, from university to a future career. The main skills I developed that were essential in my placement were communication and team working. These were important because I worked with a huge variety of people in different departments and often different countries.

The atmosphere was very good in my office. Everyone knew when a professional approach was required but you could have a laugh with them when it was appropriate,

The job role was well set up for me to be a real member of the department with my own responsibilities. A short hand-over from the previous intern of less than two weeks made it difficult to understand everything that was expected of me at first but a supportive set of colleagues meant I could learn quickly.

As mentioned before, my department sent me and other members of the office on an ecological and defensive driving course which gave me a great opportunity to improve my driving style since driving was a large part of the job.

The company has a large number of interns and relatively few graduate opportunities, this makes getting a job in the future hard but not impossible.

There were upwards of 70 other placement students on site which met at a different pub every Thursday night. This was a great way to meet new people from departments you usually wouldn't have a lot to do with in your working day, but who were in a very similar situation to you.

I lived very close to plant and it was expensive to live. I started the placement two weeks after getting my job offer so if I had longer to find somewhere to rent this would probably have reduced the cost of living a lot. Socialising is good as it is close to Cowley road where there are a large number of bars and restaurants, clubs are in the city centre but easily accessible.

Large number of bars close by and some clubs in the city centre.

There were a lot of intern organised trips, football games and events you could get involved in if you showed your interest!