Placement Student Review

I really enjoyed my year at CAT. the team I have been involved with are great to get along with and the projects I have been involved in have been interesting and varied. I have also enjoyed the social aspect of their being 20 plus other placement students on site in various departments.

I feel that my colleagues placed increasing amounts of trust in my work abilities as I became more confident and skilled at my role. My colleagues always sought to include me in work socials and events and liked to check on me to make sure I had plenty of work to do.

My team leader has a wealth of knowledge in our role as wiring harness designers, and was always able to help out with any queries I had at the time. Other team members were equally helpful and insightful with questions about their own area of work. Monthly one to one meeting with my managers gave me a chance to express any concerns I may have.

Although workload varied across my placement year, I rarely found myself without something to do. If I ever did I would ask my team lead who always had a few odd jobs for me to take on. Larger projects such as a new harness design, were often supplemented with smaller side tasks such as updating technical documentation.

My role was very design based so my first few months saw me learning the design practices of the company. however once trusted with my own project I was given mostly free reign over my design based decisions as long as I could reasonably justify them and that they were feasible.

The CAD design training will assist greatly in my dissertation when I return, as this is heavily design based in itself. Other design projects throughout my final year will see my further apply these skills I have learnt. I also plan to carry forward the punctuality and work ethic I have developed here to my final year in education.

The office atmosphere was on the whole laid back and friendly, with all colleagues getting on with each other very well. I have experienced no 'talking behind backs' or otherwise unpleasant behaviour either to myself or other co-workers, and there is often friendly competitions held throughout the year which are a great laugh!

The initial few weeks were admittedly a little hastily organised, with my computer and phone not being ready until after the first couple of days, and I never actually received a name plate for my desk. other subsequent events have ran relatively smoothly though so I can forgive these early issues.

CAT offered opportunities to join the chartership scheme early to get an advantage over starting as a graduate.

Certainly within the area I worked in, a large proportion of the team are former placement students who have returned as graduates which speaks volumes of the company in this respect. The huge scale and diversity of CAT also allows excellent promotion and personal development opportunities for later down the line.

The social scene was a real highlight of this year for me. CAT had at for this year 20 placement students at their Peterborough sight and we all got on really well and frequently arranged to do things outside of work or of a weekend. Peterborough isn't the most exciting of towns but its the people who make it.

Rent is generally about average, depending of course on where you live it typically falls around £400 a month. coming from the north myself I was pleasantly surprised to find the general cost of food and drink wasn't too dissimilar to what I was used to in Newcastle and Liverpool.

Peterborough has no student population as it has no university, therefore its nightlife is fairly limited with one club available. There are however a good number of quality pubs dotted around the town, many of which often host live music and other events.

There were numerous activities spread throughout the year organised by the company, such as work barbeques, a pitch and putt tournament, and many team members are a member of a football team. The young professionals board regularly arranges socials and challenge pub crawls with tasks to complete along the way.