Engineer Review

I enjoyed my time here. The best aspect was their was a good split between working at your desk and doing more practical tasks down on the shop floor. I enjoyed being given genuine tasks that mattered to the company. Sometimes however, I did find myself without work to do which got boring sometimes.

I felt very valued by my colleagues. Especially after the first few weeks where I got to know the workings of my department more, I was given important work that I was expected to work on independently. I felt like I was always helping the team and that I wasn't being offloaded tasks that were just jobs they didn't want to do.

I got very good support when I was here. There was a good balance of it more importantly. I never felt like I was out of my depth but I also never felt like I was getting spoon fed information. I also never felt shy to ask for help as they were always willing to give it.

This was the main problem with the placement. I was given several big projects however very few smaller tasks. With the big projects there were often standstill points where I had to wait for someone to get back to me. I also finished all my projects a week or two before my placement ended. During this time I wasn't busy and it made the days very long and boring.

I was given a lot of responsibility which increased during the placement. After my first project I was expected to know the stages of how it was done. This meant all subsequent projects were down to me and I was expected to get to the final stage of the job, where I have all my quotes and I'm asking for the money to have it done.

I feel I've really developed my networking skills. At Nissan its essential to talk to many people to get information regarding your jobs. A lot of the time when you're stuck, you just need to find the right person to speak to and you'll be away again. I'm definitely going to use this in my University projects.

The atmosphere was good. There were times when the office was quite quiet with people just working at their desks however it can get lively when a major problem happens. People are constantly leaving and entering the office to go down to the shop floor which gives it a good dynamic. If you get bored of the quieter office work then you can easily go down to the shop floor where things are a lot more frantic and exciting.

I feel it was organised fine. There were jobs that had been thought of for me before I arrived and I had all my PC equipment set up within the first few days. The only minor complaint was that I completed the work a couple of weeks before the end of the internship - at which point I struggled to find things to do.

I felt my mentor certainly pushed me to adapt to how an engineer needs to work in industry as its very different to working in a project team at University. I was particularly developed in terms of networking. I feel I've developed to be far more independent in my work and better know how to find help from the correct people.

I've spoken to Graduates here and they seem to very much enjoy the graduate scheme. You can see its high pay for a graduate which is attractive as well. The thing I'm worried about is that I really enjoyed working in my specific department (Paint) and if I were to reapply I would want to work in it again which isn't guaranteed.

There was a decent social scene most weeks. It was up to us to organise social events which we did most weeks but it was hard with people living fairly spread out. I was lucky as I'm from the area so always had my school mates to meet up with.

I was lucky enough to live in a few of my school friend's houses whilst I was working at Nissan. Because of this I didn't have to spend much on rent at all. Socialising in the North is always cheap, especially in Newcastle. A night out is very cheap here.

The Nightlife in Newcastle is up there with the best in England. Very cheap and very friendly. If you have got this placement, definitely live in Newcastle rather than Sunderland. Sunderland hasn't got very much or good Nightlife compared to Newcastle. There are so many clubs all within a 2 minute walk of each other in the centre of Newcastle.

I didn't get news of many if any opportunities for activities outside of work. However, I didn't really investigate into them as I was often busy on the weekends. I think there may be boards up around the offices with social activities on them but I didn't generally look much.