Industrial Placement - Nuclear Science and Engineering Industrial Placement Review

There were some aspects of the placement which I really enjoyed and some, not so much. The aspects I enjoyed were learning about the company and the industry, the fact that I was working in a nuclear power plant that provided renewable energy whilst ensuring safety was the number one priority, and the training programmes I attended which provided fantastic networking opportunities. I did not particularly enjoy my day-to-day work (which will be elaborated in my answers below), the department I worked in, and the friction and lack of communication within colleagues.

My colleagues were, unfortunately, not the most welcoming. I was a misfit to begin with, as I was an Engineering student and they disliked engineers. Some of them constantly spoke amongst themselves about the previous placement student (who was not an engineer) and how sad they were to see him leave. In the early days, I felt extremely pressured to built rapport with the colleagues due to this. I do have experience in working in new environments, however, from the beginning, the politics within the department resulted in me being pushed to the sidelines and being treated as a "spare part" as one colleague called me. Colleagues were frequently arguing with each other and arguing with other engineers in the department as well. Considering day-to-day work, some colleagues were helpful, whilst some simply did not care. The engineers who were above me in the hierarchy were very helpful when I had doubts or questions. Ideally, I would have been working with them, and I do not know why they placed me where they did. Outside of work, I was rarely invited to their social gatherings, and I felt I never really got to connect with any of them because I was never given the chance. Overall, I was not really valued by my colleagues.

My supervisor was very welcoming and friendly, however, he was too busy to actually monitor and discuss my progress with me. He was kind, polite and had a lot of operating experience. Initially, I thought I would be able to learn a lot from him. He was rarely around as he was too busy out on plant and working on other tasks. I was never offered any valuable opportunities apart from my day-to-day "routine" work. Whenever I was offered to shadow my supervisor, it would soon become evident to me that it would be a job that nobody else wanted to do, hence I was expected to do it. I had to be proactive and ask for opportunities which I thought were worthwhile. Communication and organisation was poor. He would rarely be around to observe me doing tasks and sign my paperwork so that I can officially be an "experienced" individual, that would enable me to do the tasks by myself. Simply put, I had to bug him a lot to get things done.

Some days were extremely busy, some days less so. The busy days flew by, especially coming up to a refuelling outage. I like to work, and if I was not given any tasks or finished them early, I always found things to be done, no matter how basic and boring they were. When I first started, I had to shadow different people each day for different tasks. Back then, I did not know the acronyms which people frequently used (there are a lot of acronyms!), and I constantly had to ask them to explain what they meant. When I did not have anyone to shadow, I did not have anything to do (which bored me immensely), and I had to constantly ask people if I could watch them (some of them did not like that). I enjoyed multitasking, but there were days when I was given too much work due to the shortage of staff, and I had to discuss with my team leader to reduce some of it. This was good, because it increased my confidence when I spoke to people with authority and helped me gauge how much work helped me achieve the perfect balance.

Unfortunately, due to my lack of experience, and the absence of my supervisor to sign off my paperwork, I was not given much responsibility. I liked being given new tasks, but I soon realised that the tasks I was given were things other people did not want to do, and most of the time it bored me out of my mind. My day-to-day work became very repetitive. I really enjoyed working by myself as it reduced my dependency on my colleagues, and as my placement progressed, I started doing things by myself more and more, and asked people for help only if I absolutely needed it. Again, being proactive helped me get tasks that had more responsibility.

Most of the work I did was not related to my discipline, but I enjoyed learning new things nevertheless. It was a steep learning curve for me as it was my first job in the industry. It was a good opportunity to enhance my technical, analytical and organisational skills. I received training in manual handling, safety, and a lot of technical tasks (again by being proactive). I also signed myself up for a short course regarding the nuclear reactor and related operations, which was fantastic (and very much related to my discipline). Even though my experience here was rather disappointing, I really value the skills I gained and I am pleased that I have this experience. Dr. Maya Angelou said, "Do the best you can until you know better. When you know better, do better." I most certainly know better now.

My colleagues and I usually got on with our work quietly, and most of us worked on plant as well. Sometimes I would be the only one in the office as every one else was out or on breaks. Sometimes we would have a laugh, however, the atmosphere in general was not very uplifting. Some colleagues spent a lot of time on their computers, and rarely spoke. Lunch/dinner was taken in a separate room. Personally, lunch times were tough because they would talk among themselves about things I did not know (especially the inside jokes). A couple of us buried our heads in books. Nobody made an effort to include the new-starts in their conversations. Overall, I did not like the atmosphere in the office at all and I preferred to go out on plant to work or go to cafeteria when I was not working.

Very poorly organised. On the plus side, due to the lack of organisation, I found my way around a lot of things which made myself more confident and organised. My first few days were extremely stressful because nobody had prepared or organised anything for my arrival. I did not have computer access, email, desk space, locker, any documentation or paperwork ready for training, etc. I had to ask people what I required and pester my team leaders a lot to get access to various things that would become part of my routine work. Moreover, I found out that for all routine jobs, we were supposed to have procedures and other training documents (which nobody carried with them when I started). Throughout the placement, I was simply filling in for jobs and doing things no one else wanted to do, so there was no real structure to it. The fact that we were short-staffed made it even worse, because most of the time there would be no one to help me out whenever I had questions or doubts.

I was given generic training for the site when I started, and later had a manual handling training session. I also did a short course as I mentioned early, which I found useful. In terms of routine tasks, I was given minimum training as we were short-staffed and my colleagues had other priorities. Had I received proper training, I may have enjoyed the work more as I would have been able to do a wider range of jobs on site. The Early Careers event was a development and networking opportunity for IPs and apprentices which I enjoyed. It was held at Cannington Court where free accommodation and food were provided. Our travel expenses were also covered. I was able to converse with the graduates and IPs there and obtained some useful information about the company as well as future prospects.

I believe that EDF Energy is a good company to work for, despite my negative experience with the Industrial Placement. I was just unfortunate to be placed in a disorganised and rather hostile department, but I know many IPs and graduates liked their work and departments. The graduate scheme looks promising, and after speaking to some current graduates, I learned that they were given the opportunity to travel to different sites and find out what type of work they liked best, and where. This shows that the graduate scheme has greater flexibility than the industrial placement. EDF has new nuclear projects coming up, therefore I am sure that there will be many opportunities available for engineers.

The IPs in our station got on well, and would often meet up during lunch or for drinks during the weekend. As I mentioned before, I was not really invited to the social scene of my fellow colleagues in my department (except for the Christmas party). The young professionals on site were all very friendly, and we frequently got to know one another when we met in the locker rooms or cafeteria. We did not have big nights out, but every one got along. Th Early careers event also enabled me to get to know the other IPs and apprentices, and I think we all had a good time socialising there. Some of us kept in contact even after the event was over.

Cost of living was surprisingly high even though I lived in a tiny village in Suffolk. The cost of renting flats and houses would shoot up when a refuelling outage was approaching, so I would advice any new IPs to secure their accommodation as early as possible. I would usually order groceries online with my flatmates, and go to Ipswich (a larger town in Suffolk) to shop and socialise. Ipswich was quite far from where I lived, but I preferred to shop there as it had a greater choice of goods and many more shops and shopping centres. People would often go to Norwich to shop and socialise as well. There were many pubs around the area I lived, and I enjoyed socialising in pubs with reasonable prices.

Nightlife in my village was non-existent, so Ipswich was the closest town with clubs and bars. It was not the best, but good company helped. I enjoyed going bowling in Martlesham with friends and I would usually go to a pub for a nice dinner, drinks and pool. Many would go to Norwich, and I heard that the nightlife there was decent, or at least better than Ipswich.

There were leisure centres nearby with facilities such as gym, pool, etc which I used. Unfortunately they were quite expensive. I used to go on long walks around the village with a friend, especially when it was not cold, as the countryside was peaceful, pretty and relaxing. There were beaches nearby which were great in summer. I would also visit the library nearby.