Vaccation Student: Environmental Consultant Review

by Arup

This review was submitted over 4 years ago, so some of the information it contains may no longer be relevant.

Rating

3.7/5
  • The Role
    4.0
  • The Company
    3.4
  • The Culture
    3.6

    The Role

  • 1. To what extent did you enjoy your work placement or internship?
  • Working at Arup over the last 6 weeks has been a great experience. It has given me good insight into what it is like to work in the environment sector for a large company such as Arup. I have gained expertience working on a number of projects and getting a taste of working in an office environment on a broad range of tasks as well as site visits out of office.

    4/5

  • 2. To what extent did you feel valued by your colleagues?
  • The staff at Arup have been very friendly and welcomed me into the team from day one. They were all very approachable and happy to help if i had any questions. Unfortunatly as I was only on placement for 6 weeks I didn't get the chance to meet and work with everyone on the team, but the social activities help during my placement such as Hub of the Month was a great way for me to intergrate into the team.

    4/5

  • 3. To what extent were you given support and guidance by management/your supervisor(s)?
  • The support I have been given with my work has been excelent. While at first the new tasks and how tasks were completed was new to me, the staff were more than happy to assist, with a Graduate at Arup (Mike Jones) being extremely helpful and metoring me through my day to day tasks.

    5/5

  • 4. How busy were you on a daily basis?
  • While there one or two slow day, overall the amount of work I have recieved wile on placement has been well ballanced. I appreciate that within any job there are periods that are very busy and others that are not so busy. However, my supervisors were very balanced in the work they gave me, and if I did not have the time to complete a task I could approach them and they would find an alternative.

    4/5

  • 5. How much responsibility were you given during your placement?
  • In term of responsibility I was given I was very happy. I was allowed to work on nationally important projects, make arangments for site visits and accomodation arrangments for myself and a colleague on an extended site visit that lasted a number of days. All the work I produced was checked by appropriatly qualified staff and any changes to my work that were needed were communicated to me for me to complete.

    3/5

  • 6. To what extent did/will the skills you developed, and training you received, assist you in your degree studies and beyond?
  • The skills I have learned built on my studies at university to develop those skills further. The placement also allowed me to practice skills suck as the use of ArcGIS and provided me with knowledge of the workplace and a work ethic that i will carry on into my final year of study.

    5/5

    The Company

  • 7. What was the general atmosphere in your office?
  • Very freiendy atmosphere within the office. Even during periods when it was quiet with numerous members of staff taking annual leave the atmosphere was still friendly and welcoming. There were one or two days that there were very few people in the office, on those days the atmosphere did drop a bit as it was very quiet. But overall very good

    4/5

  • 8. How well organised was the overall work placement or internship set up?
  • The set up was well organised on the whole. There were some days/site visits that plans changed for quite last minute but i am flexible so this did not impact me. The start of my placement and induction was relativly seamless. However I was unnable to log into and use the phose system during the full placement, but i was able to use skype.

    4/5

  • 9. In terms of personal training and development, to what extent did the company or firm invest in you?
  • Arup set me a number of new challenges and tasks that I had not completed before and coached me through the process. Though towards the end of the placement some tasks became quite repetative, I appeciate there ios a limited amount of work I can be given while on placement.

    4/5

  • 10. What were the perks on your work placement?
  • National Travel

    3/5

  • 11. How appealing are future employment prospects within the organisation?
  • There have been some indications that there are possible future employment opportunities in Arup and i would be very happy to continue to work at Arup after my studies as i have thouroughly enjoyed my time here.

    4/5

    The Culture

  • 12. Was there a good social scene amongst any fellow placement students/colleagues?
  • I was the only placement within the consulting team so there were no other placement students on my office floor. While there were others within the building I didn't get much chance to speak with them apart from during the inital induction talks within the first week of my placement. But the younger memebers of the staff within my team were bery friendly.

    4/5

  • 13. What was the cost of living and socialising in the area you worked in?
  • Cardiff is rellativly inexpensive in comparison to other UK cities. The only cost that I really had during my placement was commuting to work as I had to purchase train tickets to travel too and from on occasion. But as this was a payed placement this was not an issue.

    4/5

  • 14. What was the Nightlife like in the area you worked?
  • I didn't experience the nightlife with those i worked with other than attending 1 of the "Pub of the Month" events. I do however live near Cardiff and have had lots of past experience with the nightlife as there is a broad range of activities, concerts, restaurants and night clubs at various price ranges. (may be biased)

    5/5

  • 15. Were there many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work?
  • There were some social and sports opportunities but as i was only in the placement for 6 weeks there were not really that many opportunities. I also completed my work at a time when many people were off on annual leave which could have impacted the amount of activities that were on offer.

    3/5

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Details

Internship (1 Month+)

Environmental Science

Wales

September 2018


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