Student Placement Engineer Review

I really enjoyed my work internship as it gave me a good overview of a large scale engineering project, what I hope to do after I graduate from university next year. I didn't feel alone or overloaded or unhappy at any point on the placement. The office environment was very nice and had a great canteen.

The people in my team are very used to having interns in the company and they knew the sort of work that is possible to be completed in 8 weeks. They made me feel like part of the team and really offered some good advice about opportunities I should aim to look for if I come back into the company.

My placement manager was fantastic and she really knew how to manage a student on an 8 week placement, both on the workload she expected me to complete and the level of support I needed to really come out of my shell and get working with the right people. She was really a benefit throughout my placement.

I was appropriately busy, some days were much busier than others but I never felt like I had nothing to do. This stopped me from ever feeling like I didn't want to come to work. There was a good balance between me looking forward to the day because I knew exactly what I was going to do and me looking forward to the day because there was something new happening on the project.

I was given a reasonable amount of responsibility on my placement, as my work was a part of a larger push on the project to organise itself moving forward by clearing up inconsistencies with a large amount of documentation. I did not feel like a hanger on and I did not feel snowed under.

The things I learned on placement will help me in both my studies and my future, should I end up working with the company. Many of the things I learned were easily transferable to other careers and opportunities, which will start me on the right foot moving forward, especially many of the project management skills.

The office always felt easy going, although we were nearing an important deadline so there was perhaps less chat due to the amount of work everyone had to do for it. They were never difficult and they always made time in their calendars for me to ask them questions about their job and how they got there.

The placement was very well organised and there was lots of support from within the company for the training scheme so I never felt lost or out of the loop. There was a lot of training and information given to us to help us integrate with the company as easily as possible.

The company has invested quite a bit of time into developing my professional skills throughout my placement, which is promising for my future with the company. There were Mental Health awareness and Resilience training days that offered us the vocabulary to express ourselves should we be unhappy with how things were. They were a really good resource.

I aim to get a graduate placement with them, hopefully soon, as I enjoy working in the company and I have spoken to many people who have gone on the Grad scheme and continued working with the company after it. They have all spoken about the possible opportunities for advancement within the company.

My fellow students all lived near by so we had many opportunities to socialise outside of work, which is a good way to relax as they often have also moved away for the summer to work so it's a ready made friend group. The town we lived in was very nice so it wasn't hard to find things to do.

Both the area I lived in and the area I worked in were more expensive than where I live usually but the costs never felt prohibitive as the placement was paid and there were cheaper options available for some things. They placement being paid made the cost worth it.

The nightlife was great, there were a variety of pubs, bars and clubs that we got to go to and work out our particular favourites. The collection of students on placement were usually up to meet up to do something so I never felt bored after work and I still had time to relax.

There were plenty of opportunities to do things outside of work, I organised a few since I had ideas of things to do. We often met up just to hang out and we all got a good idea of what we each did as well as talking about non work related things.