Quality Engineering Intern Review

I really enjoyed my placement overall. The people were fantastic, the work was generally quite interesting, but there were lots of opportunities to try different things. It was the most flexible workplace I've ever worked in: it was actively encouraged to try working in different departments in order to gain as much experience and enjoyment as possible for the whole year.

My colleagues were amazing. I could not have asked for a better team to work with. Each and every member of my team was actively invested in not only my professional development, but also my personal enjoyment of the internship as well. They made every effort to make sure I was made to feel like part of the team, and supported me in everything I did every step of the way. They were patient with me as I learned and made mistakes, and encouraged me to get the absolute most out of my placement, as well as being a great laugh to spend time with socially as well. On top of that, being in the company of so many interns across the plant (even just within my building alone), a very tight-knit community was formed, and I've made some amazing friends this year as a result.

My manager and the general managers were supportive when I worked with them, although often not too much support was actually needed. However, the one or two people in my team that ended up working with me in a supervisory role on various projects were extremely supportive, making sure I understood exactly what needed to be don, why, and how to do it in good time. They really helped me to develop my professional skills.

My level of business varied from day to day, but on average I was reasonably busy most days. There were periods of a few weeks at a time when I was absolutely loaded with work to do, but even then it felt manageable. There were also periods of similar length when I had very little to do at all (unfortunately for some of the other interns, these periods lasted much longer for them). However, during these periods I was usually able to find things to do that would make good use of the time I had free: for example, I spent a lot of time this year learning Spanish, and have now achieved a decent conversational ability as a result. But because this workplace is so flexible, when I had little to do I also found myself accompanying other interns with their work, which made things more fun as well as meaning that I could work in many different areas that I wouldn't normally have been able to.

The amount of responsibility I was given generally ramped up over the course of the year as my knowledge of my team's processes and technical knowledge increased. From the very beginning I was given a weekly task that had to be completed in order for the team's records to be up to date at all times, which was a good level of responsibility to start with. Later on I was made responsible for a fairly significant task that would have caused quite a few problems had it not been done, and htis task continued for quite a while, so that was also a good level of responsibility as well.

The main skills that I will be taking away from this internship are problem solving and root cause analysis skills, as well as technical skills involving software such as Excel and CATIA. The technical skills of course will be useful in their own right in the future, but the logical reasoning skills mentioned above with prove to be invaluable during my studies: working in quality engineering will really enable me to critically evaluate all of my work in the future to work out what could go wrong and mitigate it.

The office atmosphere was always fantastic. It was jovial, chatty, extremely friendly. Almost everyone in the office was always up for a chat and a laugh, but also there was nobody you couldn't count on for help if you needed it. Plus having quite a lot of other interns in our large office meant that our building's intern community was very strong, so there were always fellow students to spend time with as well.

Unfortunately, the organisation of the placement before I actually started work was pretty abysmal. The application and interview process was good, with prompt responses and feedback. But after I was offered the job, despite being told it would only take 3 weeks, it took 4 months for them to send me a contract. Others had it worse: several interns didn't receive a contract until some time after they started working, even up to a month later in some cases. This led to a few interns having to live in Airbnbs for short periods because they could not find accomodation without proof of employment. For a company this size, this is pretty disgraceful. However, once we'd started work it was more or less fine, no real issues after that. Also, the company is able to recognise that they handled it terribly this year, as they gathered all of the interns together during the year and asked us to tell them everything that had gone wrong in our internships (including the above) and how they could fix it for future generations of interns. So hopefully future interns should have things much better than we have had it.

The company itself invested a decent amount into me, including a good salary and many opportunities within the workplace. The people in my workplace invested even more in me, in terms of time and effort and patience. I even got the opportunity to go to Munich with one of the members of my team for a few days to attend meetings and a workshop relating to a project I was working on. So overall I felt like I was well invested in.

Future employment prospects are somewhat up in the air, or at least vague. Of course there will always be job openings in a company this size, but the record of past interns returning to work in similar areas to where they did their internships within the company is very poor. Also, with Brexit potentially on the horizon, it is difficult to predict what the company will look like in the future, as some teams are already starting to be dissolved. However, having a reference from a manager within the company will look good on any job application with the same company, so it's not out of the question.

The social scene was one of the defining factors of the whole internship. There were around 75 interns on the plant as a whole, and around 20 in my building alone. We took breaks together, ate lunch together, worked together, organised weekly social events, even went on holiday together over the course of the year. Having this incredible community of interns really made this internship amazing, and I really feel that I've made some friends for life here.

My internship was based at the Mini plant in Oxford. The cost of living in oxford is the second highest in the country after London, so this was always going to be an issue. The intern salary is generally good enough to live for the most part, although people who weren't living with other students often ended up having to pay exorbitant rent prices. Socialising was also more expensive than other places, but not prohibitively so.

Oxford has an extrememly vibrant night life due to it being a city containing two universities. There are hundreds of pubs, bars, clubs, venues, restaurants etc, and there are always all kinds of things to do. Us interns tried out many new activities this year as well, and of course the city itself is gorgeous and full of life and history.

Outside of all the social events with the other interns, there were various other events going on usually. Various sports teams were formed from hte ranks of employees here, many people use the gym on the plant, I even went out to do team building events (and social events) with my team. There are also regular charity events on the plant during the work day to support the company's house charity.