Series Production Engineering Student Review

My 13 month placement was a great experience, good hands on experiences in a variety of areas and a great social aspect to back it up. Being placed in Oxford was great, although a bit pricey. I highly enjoyed working within my team and the work itself was also very interesting and I could really get involved.

I felt my colleagues respected my views and always encouraged me to have my own input and to be confident in myself. I was also pushed to improve my skills and knowledge and I genuinely felt like my team appreciated my input and assistance. Everyone was really friendly and welcoming and would go out of their way to help me if I required.

My supervisor was great, especially helping me achieve all the competences required for my university work throughout the year. He always made sure I had enough work to do and that it was relevant to my course and and that I was getting what I wanted out of the placement.

In the particular role I was in the workload varied massively, some days I would have lots of tasks to complete and would be very busy and others were very quiet. I used the quiet times to complete my university work for the year, so it worked to my advantage.

At the beginning I had little responsibility, but as my knowledge and experience grew so did the amount of responsibility I was given. Towards the end I was being handed tasks with very little input from others, which was great because I felt trusted within my team.

The softer skills such as teamwork, communication and confidence will definitely be useful throughout my degree and beyond, how to plan work and to efficiently work well in a team. Also the technical skills, such as my work with CATIA and 3D modelling was also highly beneficial for the future.

The social scene was great, throughout the plant there were around 80 interns and we used the opportunity too organise intern socials once a week and local pubs. We also used the weekends to go travelling around the UK with trips to Wales, Cornwall as a group which was fun.

Oxford is very expensive to live in from renting to socialising. The cost of my rent was £500 per month not including bills. Parking, food, drinks and travelling was all similar to London prices. But, it is affordable with the salary from the internship - just not much left to show for a years work!

There were a few activities available, for example I joined a tap dancing class that I went to every week. The other interns also set us a football group and they played weekly, alongside that there are local gyms and the town centre which has a food market that is worth a visit.