SMART Validation and Verification Review

I truly have enjoyed my Placement and I absolutely realized how useful has it been for my personal development both as an Engineer and as an individual as well. It is an entirely new experience for me and totally different to the every day life of a student. I have had the chance to get a true taste of what the industry looks like.

I was undoubtedly valued from my colleagues and this is something that I was feeling on my every day interactions with the company stuff. Even though I was not the most technically skilled or experienced individual in the room , my opinions and suggestions were always valued and considered in every meeting even if the finally decision was not based on them.

I have had close supervision , guidance and feedback throughout my whole placement duration. I was assigned a graduate engineer as my 'buddy' (company term) to assist me to questions that I had on a daily basis regarding my workload and everyday admin and procedures. My supervisor was really helpful and was always making sure that every was fine and smooth throughout my days there.

My workload was keeping me busy on a daily basis and apart from my actual individual work (that was taking about 4 hours a day) I had to call in for several meeting throughout the day , some of them being generic team updates meeting as well as some others being project work based meetings that I was either spectating or leading. Based on these comment I would say that I was fairly busy.

I was giving support on different projects while I had the chance to lead a couple of projects myself that were actually quite important and involved potentials for great contribution to several improvements or resolving of issues. Based on that I would say that for a placement student I was given a moderate to probably slightly high responsibility to my work as other people were closely tied up and were relying to my work.

This year has truly helped me improve and develop myself through my every day interaction with senior engineers and directors .I have also had the opportunity to be given quality training from third party companies involving aspects from customer care, problem solving, communication and team work. I have truly developed my time management skills while working on different projects at the same time and problem solving skills while facing several procurement delays and design challenges.

Really friendly and warm. People were always friendly and caring while always putting efforts to make the Cummins values come true ( Inclusion , diversity , teamwork ). People were always open to questions regardless of the hierarchy level and always trying to be truly helpful. My colleagues and supervisor were really caring at all times regardless of their workload.

Really thought through placement scheme , with onboarding events , seminars and special training. Workload , desks , space , personal machine , Personal protective equipment and everything relevant were allocated to me and were available for every placement student according to each Student's role. Placement students events and social event were organized as well.

The company really invests in developing students through training and work. The company is in collaboration to a third party training firm , providing high quality training to all the placement students in regards to team work , customer care , time management and presentation - communication skills. The company has really helped me develop both in technical and in soft skills perspective.

The cost of living was good and affordable in relationship to my salary. The rent for my accommodation was really affordable and I have had several options to choose from even though the working location - city is not particularly big .The area is quite and tranquil while providing all the required luxuries and big grocery store franchise .

The nightlife is not particularly exciting as the city of Daventry has limited places to choose for a night out and not that many people living around. Additionally , there is not train or national express station in the city thus travels to nearby big cities (ie. Coventry- Birmingham - London) take more time and cost more as you have to use the local buses or taxi to commute to the nearby village-city train station (Long Buckby or Northampton).

The company is hosting local activities in societies regarding sports such as Badminton , Cycling , Karting, Football , netball .The company has organized in many occasions, sport events and charity days involving sports (Running ,Cycling , triathlon ) .There is also a selection of local gyms and clubs where you can sign up for dancing , swimming , squash.