Engineering Placement Student Review

My placement at CTT was very enjoyable and contributed a lot to my development. The people in and outside the office were friendly and willing to help. Working hours are flexible and it was never a problem to arrange to leave early or get holiday. I enjoyed that it was real, challenging work right from the start which allowed me to develop and also see how I impacted the company.

CTT offer plenty of training programs and opportunities to develops you skills. I think this shows that the company as a whole values its employees and looks to develop the current staff and not replace them with external hires. I got continuous from my manager and all of the other people I did work for. Depending on the person though, you might have to be the proactive side and ask for feedback instead of just expecting feedback to be given.

I would say that guidance from my managers was one of the highlights of the placement - there was a great balance of allowing me to get on with my own work (and not feeling like I am being babysat) and getting relevant feedback, support and guidance whenever I asked for it. People are approachable and are always able to help or direct you towards a person that can help.

This is one of the drawbacks of a placement that is structured in multiple rotations in different drawbacks. Although in general I kept busy and felt like I was being challenged to do more and be productive (which was a positive), whenever it came time to move to a different department, the last week and first couple of weeks in each department were somewhat slower than normal. Also, give the nature of 4 month rotations, some people in certain departments were reluctant to involve placement students in longer projects with the pretext that "you'll be gone in a couple of months time anyway".

At CTT placement students undertake the same work that graduate engineers do - you are trusted to lead pieces of work, lead projects, organize and participate in or even lead customer calls and visits. And this makes sense for the company, because they can accelerate your development by putting you in positions of responsibility.

On an engineering placement you obviously expect to gain a lot of technical skills - in the case of CTT the most notable were thermofluids science aptitude, material science knowledge, data analysis and the use of tools like Excel Macros and MATLAB. But what I found most useful and believe will be invaluable for when I return to industry after my final year at university is the development of my project management, planning and soft skills and behaviors.

People in the office were helpful and friendly, but depending on the department and the location of the office the sociability varied. One of the departments I was in was a very tightly knit group of people that felt almost like family. Another was rather quiet. The third was one of the larger departments in the company and always had some people chatting.

Similar to the atmosphere the organization was different from department to department. Overall it was good and felt structured. However, as with the amount of work you have, the first and last couple of weeks on a new rotation were somewhat a struggle. In one of my rotations it felt like the department hadn't been expecting me and weren't prepared.

In terms of training placement students are treated the same as full time employees or even better. In my first 3 to 4 weeks I had a set of extensive training sessions covering all aspects of the business, from the company organization, to the processes used by CTT and, of course, technical aspects affecting turbochargers. In addition to this, there were plenty of training opportunities for students to sign up for. CTT has a training session calendar on their intranet that any employee can access and sign up for a variety of training sessions.

Every year the company offer the best performing placement student/-s a sponsorship program - a guaranteed spot on a graduate scheme and around 1500 pounds worth of funding for every year the student has left at university. In addition to this, some placement student that did not receive sponsorship, but still performed well may be offered the graduate role.

Yes. There were plenty of social events organized by employees both on a company level (for example for Christmas, Easter, Ramadan and others) and also the chance to go out with people on your floor or in your department. Also, almost all of the placement students lived in the same building in the centre of town, so it was very convenient and easy to get in touch.

Huddersfield is a very cheap place to live. It is possible to rent a nice flat or studio for one, in the town centre (about 10 minutes walking from work) for around 100 pounds per week. Groceries are similar to the prices in Manchester and depend more on the chain than the location. Socialising is also fairly cheap, there are a number of pubs, bars and restaurants that are at the level of a bigger city, but cost less.