Vacation Student Review

I found the overall placement to be quite enjoyable, with a couple of site visits dotted between work on various projects (mainly within London). There are also a multitude of events run by employees that you can attend, if you use their social platform, Yammer, such as Badminton or Board Gaming.

Everyone was polite and nice to me, although some of the time I felt the work I was given didn't take advantage of the things I have already learnt on my course. I believe this is partially due to both the various years of students they get in, as well as the jobs they have on hand at the time of the placement, however, rather than an unwillingness to give more complex work.

My supervisor and colleagues were happy to help with any questions I posed to them, even though they were quite busy. Generally, after my placement, I felt like I should have taken more advantage of this and asked more questions, although there is always the balance of needing to know something to simply just wanting a second opinion.

I was fairly busy during the first 4-5 weeks, however towards the end of my placement work fell off a bit, with my final week made up of smaller tasks and tying up lose ends on pieces of work which I would not be able to finish before I left (e.g processing records from council which hadn't arrived yet).

Responsibility varied depending on the work, from basic data processing and checking to working on a desk study for an upcoming project.

I think the skills I developed in working within a larger group (ie 20~ people) will help me from now on, with time management and data searching and collection being an invaluable skill for my upcoming research project.

The atmosphere was a fairly relaxed one, where you could go and talk to anyone who didn't looked preoccupied at the time, although typically people kept on the topic of work outside of break times such as the arrival of the fruit basket, around lunch, or towards the end of the day.

I felt like the first day of the placement could have been better organised, with more guidance on the first day, rather than just giving you a quick tour and sitting you down, however other than that the placement went very smoothly.

It seems like a really nice place to work, although the cost of living may be quite prohibitive and commuting isn't a very appealing option.

I didn't even know the names or faces of the other people on placement at the same time as me, bar one, although this may be due in part to the fact that I started a week earlier than everyone else in the same timeslot.

Cost of living in London is quite expensive, as is socialising.

I can't comment as I didn't go out during my placement, however I've heard its quite expensive.

There were a lot of activities available outside of work, given you got in contact with the right people and used the social platform Arup uses internally, Yammer.