Programme Management Review

I really liked the people who I worked with. In terms of work, I felt quite drowned out by the company and felt like my work was insignificant but I just made sure to keep looking for more work and then I met an amazing colleague in a different team who included me in some exciting new stuff towards the end. So there were some really interesting things available I just had to keep searching and networking across teams to make things possible which was sometimes very tiring.

I felt like my opinion was valued as I had that fresh undergraduate perspective. In terms of the work I produced I did not necessarily feel that valued as quite a lot of the work I was asked to do was just stored into a folder. However, I did do some pieces that were greatly received but that was very spaced out over the whole year which made it tough to keep daily moral up.

Would have given a 10 but my original manager was not that supportive/guiding which made the beginning months of my placement quite tough. After some reshuffling I quickly found my feet with a new supportive team and a lovely manager. I also met another colleague who offered to mentor me which was an amazing opportunity!

Unfortunately the project that I had been brought in to work on was cancelled 3 months into my placement which meant that all the work planned for me was gone. This meant that I spent the rest of the year asking for work which was tough/draining because it just meant doing odd jobs which would take me a day then I'd be asking for more. However, towards the end I managed to get some work with a different team where I produced some interesting things (which was rewarding) however this was only in the last couple of months. So asking around for more work definitely paid off but it was still very draining to have to do day in and day out.

Initially not that much at all and I felt like a lot of my work was glossed over or was created just to keep me busy. However, I found work with a different team with a colleague who was keen to get me involved and I found that my responsibilities greatly grew and I was thrown into the deep end a bit more which was daunting at the time but definitely taught me some invaluable skills.

I believe the skills I developed and the training I received has/will help me so much. I learnt to work with lots of different people and this matured me a lot more than anything university has offered as I was having to professionally deal with difficult colleagues and set backs. Generally the biggest thing for me has been the confidence and maturity and now being to strike up conversations with all people of all ages.

Relatively quiet which was nice if you had a lot of work that day. The people were really nice an you could ask anyone for help but majority of people in my office were stressed quite a lot which made the office a bit tense at times especially as I did not want to add to their stress. A lot of my friends had people who they would go for coffee breaks with and I missed that with my office as everyone seemed to do their own thing.

Very well organised. There were lots of skills workshops as tours etc. to allow for undergraduates to see what Jaguar Land Rover was really about and it was nice to see what our work is contributing to. The only down side was that the initial correspondence telling us where we would be based was very slow so we were having to get houses just weeks before starting placement. Once we started work though the placement organisation was great!

A lot. There were many free courses to build on skills such as communication and negotiation as well as Microsoft Excel etc. There were also many groups that you could join and get involved with. You were also exposed to so many different cultures which was great and development my confidence a lot by getting involved / meeting new people through these opportunities. The one down side is that actually most of that stuff was external to my everyday work, in terms of my actual daily work I didn't feel as invested in as a lot of my work (not all, but a lot) was not really significant and some would even be left in a folder as no one had to time to review it even though they had asked for it to be done.

I think in the right team/departments future employment is very appealing as there are some really exciting new things happening in Jaguar Land Rover. However, equally there are some areas where I would say that future employment prospects are not so appealing. It is probably split half and half in my opinion.

Yes. However, it could have been better but unfortunately as we received information on where were would be based quite late, a lot of undergraduates were scattered around in different towns as people just rushed to find somewhere to live. This meant that meeting up was quite hard but everyone made a good effort to so it was too bad!

The cost of living was relatively expensive due to the flat we were living in. However in terms of things around us and transport home it was not too bad as we had a big Aldi near us and everything was within walking distance or if not there was public transport to take us there (if we needed to but we had a car anyway so we were fine).

It was not too bad. There were a couple of clubs and a lot of bars which was nice. There was an array of nights out too including bongos bingo, clubbing, karaoke or quizzes. We lived quite central to town and there was never lots of rowdiness etc and every night that we went out we had a great time! Some of the clubs definitely had some underage people in them though.

Yes definitely although you had to seek a lot of them out yourself and it helped a lot if you had a car as a lot of them would travel out of our town to access more facilites involved with the activities you wanted to do. These would be found mainly through Google or the local gym etc. However there were local opportunities though like night shelters etc!