Controller Review

The experience overall was really enjoyable. There was a huge variety of tasks and challenges which allowed me to push myself regularly. I gained numerous skills, which made the experience very rewarding. The working environment was fast paced and fairly intense, but this is an environment that I thrive in.

I felt very valued by colleagues. I was very surprised by the level of responsibility I was given. As I developed and gained more experience, I was able to gain additional responsibility. Towards the end of my contract, I was given the same responsibility as the controllers around me by working an early shift.

My supervisor gave me good guidance at the beginning and he was able to mentor me to a level in which I was able to ask for additional responsibilities and be given full autonomy with my role. In terms of management support/guidance, this was significantly less evident during my time.

The role that I worked in was very operational. This meant that if there were no issues reported, then I would be struggling to have enough of a workload. On the other hand, when I had a handover or worked early shift and additionally there were many issues that needed reacting to it would result in having an enormous workload.

I was given a huge level of responsibility while working on my placement. Initially, I started with a small level, and this was gradually increased as my knowledge and experience developed. Towards the end of the year I was given the same level of responsibility as other controllers around me.

The skills that I developed at Nissan, are mainly unique to Nissan. I am unsure if a lot of the skills would be transferrable to a new role. The disciplines I developed however, such as time management, organization etc is definitely transferable and I think this will assist greatly in my future studies.

The atmosphere is mainly very intense. The role I have was very operational and required a high level of focus. There is little focus on innovation and the development of creating an enjoyable working environment. The intense nature of the role prevented 'fun' being a central part of the day.

At the beginning it took a while to ensure that I had access to everything I needed for my role. In addition, the induction seems irrelevant to my role at Nissan, and was a generic introduction in which production staff attended also. After the first month however, it was well organized.

There was very little additional training available, and signing up to training courses was discouraged. Although I was able to do some personal development on the role, it came mainly from myself, there was little push from the company to invest in training / development. I did gain the opportunity to do sharepoint training, however this was something I pushed for.

There is encouragement from the HR department to apply for the graduate role, however there is very little encouragement from the department I work in to apply for the graduate role. I will apply for the role, and believe that I would be in good stead to get a job in the future, however it is unclear if there will be a position available.

Many of the other placement students did not live locally, and so actively looked to make friends with the new placement students to ensure they could maintain a healthy social life during their time at Nissan. This was pushed entirely from the placement students and we regularly enjoyed nights out.

Newcastle is a fairly cheap area to socialize in and there are a huge variety of things to do in terms of whether you wanted to spend money or not. I would recommend staying in Newcastle and then travelling to Washington as there are not many social areas in Washington.

The nightlife in Newcastle is excellent, however the nightlife in Washington was not significant. There are a variety of bars and clubs to visit and there is something for everyone in Newcastle. In addition to this there are a large number of restaurants and nice cocktail bars which make a good night out.

There was a very limited number of activities that were outside of work. There was the mention of a netball team, however this was not communicated much. There was an activity for football, however contractors (placements) were not able to qualify to go to Manchester and so was off putting to participate.