Mechanical Engineering Intern Review

I have thoroughly enjoyed my internship with BP. It has been a great insight into the professional world and sort of technical work that companies such as BP carry. Depsite being challenging at times, it has been extremely enjoyable and a very worthwhile and valuable experience. I am very grateful for being given the chance to do it!

I felt very valued by my colleagues as they were willing to spend time getting to know me, and also include me activities going on in the office. They valued my opinion, experience and knowledge and went out of their way to explore ideas with me, assist and help with challenges I experienced and endeavour to make me feel part of the team.

The support given to me by my supervisor has been superb. He has been able to balance being involved and interested, and yet, has let me develop ideas and investigate areas independantly and not micro manage the project. I've been allowed the flexibility to be involved with other activities outside of the project and be supported in doing those things.

Every single day I had plenty of tasks to get on with, which were discussed at the start of the day with my supervisor. About half of every day was filled with various meetings for the projects I was involved with, so time had to be managed efficiently in order to still complete my work and daily tasks. My supervisor always made sure that I had tasks to get on with, but not so much that would result in me working overtime, staying late or working weekends.

I was very much left to manage the project, and be responsible for time management, deliverables and interaction with other members of the project. Being involved with the lunctime seminar series (lunch&learn) involved being part of a team helping to arrange speakers, liasing with other interns and booking rooms for these events to be held.

The skills and knowledge I have gained during my internship will greatly assist in my own studies but also going forward in my career. Learning how to use industry standard equipment and software means I am now more skilled up for future work. Furthermore, I have been able to consolidate my own knowledge and skills further, and be confident in what I know.

In my particular department, a lot of people work from home fairly regularly. We get every other Friday off work, but the Friday that we do work is particularly quiet. Most days however the office has a nice atmosphere, there's a free coffee area so a lot of people grab a coffee for a quick catch up. My department also has little weekly events, like cake Wednesdays. It's the little things that make the office a nice place to work.

I was rather unfortunate with the run up to starting the internship. All the other interns found out which office in the UK they would be placed at over a month in advance of starting. However I only found out 2 weeks before the start date, this was particularly stressful to go through while also completing final year University exams and commitments. BP provide some support with regards to accommodation for the internship period, however this was insanely expensive (being in London) and most of the interns could not afford this. Most interns ended up grouping together and renting houses together in the local area. Once I started the internship, it was organised very well and had no more hiccups.

I had access to the online training database for BP and could undertake any training that I wanted. So I completed various training courses in order to further understand my projects and to get the most out of them. Some of the interns in other disciplines got the opportunity to visit other offices not just around the UK but also abroad around Europe.

Towards the end of the internship period you undergo a final review meeting in which based on how you perform you could be offered a graduate position. There is no set number of graduates that BP take on every year, so be prepared that some years there may be a couple of jobs in a particular discipline but in other years there may be none.

A lot of the interns lived together in rented shared houses, this made it a lot easier to socialise with them. We all arrange to have lunch together most days so get to catch up regularly. The social scene in the department completely depends on the department. My team go out for drinks or an evening meal after work most weeks, which is really nice to see everyone in a much more casual environment.

Being in London, everything is a lot more expensive than if you were placed in the office in Aberdeen. To compensate for living in London, you are given a living allowance on top of your normal salary which helps a lot. Whenever I go out in the evening with my team, they share the cost between them which greatly helps out my expenses! The pay is very good for an internship so struggling for money isn't applicable and I have managed to save the majority of my salary.

Being in London the nightlife is pretty good and everything is easily accessible. I am staying in Richmond so most nights I will be out having casual drinks in Richmond with friends or work colleagues, there are plenty of places to go. You just need to be cautious of the prices and aware of how much you are spending.

There were several intern committees that you could get involved with if you wanted to, whether they were organising talks or competitions or social events. There was always lots going on and the intern events tended to link up with the graduate events so we got to socialise a lot with the graduates.