Engineer Review

I have enjoyed working in a real world environment where I can learn as I work and the contributions that I make are valued. I like the team working and office environment at MBDA and I have enjoyed the support of the people around me in my office. I haven't enjoyed every task I have given but the vast majority has pushed me to learn more and grow which is something I find important in the placement year.

I feel more valued when I am being given some responsibility as I feel this shows that my colleagues trust me and know that I can complete the work. This also makes me feel like my contributions are important and the work I'm doing has some value. I also feel more valuable when I'm being given tasks to complete regularly.

My team has always been friendly and helpful whenever I have had questions about the work or company. My manager has been very supportive and understanding especially with work that I need to complete to qualify my placement year with my university. The project managers I work with have also been friendly and helpful.

Most days I have plenty of task to do. I find keeping busy a good thing and I like to have lots of tasks that I can work through and choose between. Sometimes some tasks can be boring but this is expected with any job. I enjoy the work I have been given and I am glad that I'm not being overloaded with too many tasks.

I have been given some responsibility during the placement year. the amount of responsibility has varied with the tasks and projects I have been working on. I think that there would be the opportunity to quickly gain more responsibility once having done a graduate role at the company. Due to the nature of the work I think this limits the amount of responsibility an undergraduate should take.

Through out my time at MBDA I have developed team working skills. The work I have been given had made me use my initiative to solve problems and has lead to customer presentations. The have given me the chance to learn to write/ present high level documents and to manage my time more effectively.

There are some quite days but generally the office always has a positive atmosphere and a fun work ethic. It’s nice to know that there is always support within the office if its needed and people are very helpful and friendly. The office furniture is more spacious than I first expected and this helps with the overall feel.

I would have liked to have chosen my start date as the placement starts in September which is very inconvenient. It would be better to have optional start dates earlier in the summer. The rest of the placement has been very well organised and I didn't have any problems with the administration when starting the placement.

I have been able to attend a small number of training courses if they were free. There are some courses that I needed to attend, but I couldn't as I'm a placement student and there's no funding for undergraduate training. A small amount of investment or a limit of 2 or 3 training courses would show undergraduates that they are valued in the company and improve their work.

MBDA has a really strong graduate scheme with the opportunity to do 4 placements (6months each) within the 2 year grad scheme. They allow the graduate to attend lots of training courses and they are given the opportunity to choose their projects and placements. The graduates are looked after by a mentor.