Industrial Trainee Review

I found the placement extremely enriching. It was challenging and interesting, with each day being slightly different. I had the opportunity to get involved in detailed design and see my work be implemented into projects. To use my University learning to make a difference to real-life engineering problems made it feel worthwhile.

I felt highly valued. I could always ask for help and nobody ever refused to give up their time to help me. I learned a lot through this because my colleagues were not only nice people but highly skilled engineers. I had regular meetings with my line manager to ensure that I was getting the most out of my placement.

As mentioned above, I had regular meetings with my line manager to ensure not only was I getting the most out of the placement, but also that Arup was getting the most out of me. This mutually beneficial approach to the whole placement year meant I learned a lot and enjoyed my time.

Towards the start of my placement I was not extremely busy, as I was new to the company and had to pick up a lot of different skills. My time was therefore spent learning. In the second half of my placement I could use this learning in project work and I became very (but not too) busy.

I directly communicated with Contractors and Clients in meetings and my results from calculations, for example, were used for design and quoted in meetings. Of course my work was checked by my colleagues, but due to me being given a fair amount of responsibility I felt valued and proud of my work.

I can imagine using my skills once I am back at University. This is not just engineering skills which will of course be valuable, but also organisation and management of my time and resources. I think group work in particular will improve now that I have seen how a real life engineering team is structured and the roles assigned to each person.

The office was generally a fun and relaxed environment to be in. There was always an air of professionalism and as a result I always felt motivated and productive, as did my colleagues. That being said I could always have quick conversations with colleagues to get to know them better and fun events outside of work ensured this too.

My placement was organised very well. Upon arrival I was given a tour and introduced to the team immediately. Throughout the placement I was encouraged to keep up my personal development record of my work with a Supervising Engineer. At the end I met with HR to discuss my performance and future opportunities.

I felt like I was given every opportunity to develop and learn. I travelled to London to take place in a training course for software. I was also allowed to book my time to training for a couple of weeks to learn and write Python code to then apply this knowledge to project work, which I found immensely rewarding.

I was offered a job at the end of my placement by the Director of Infrastructure and his sentiments seemed to be reflected by other colleagues. I have been asked back for summer placements and a job in the future if I’d like it. An associate from Belfast also said he’d give be a job there if I wanted it.

There were plenty of social events. I went away on two team building weekends and regularly attended ‘pub of the month’. Within project teams there were multiple social events too and I went to some of these. One project in particular had multiple events due to its success and it was fun to celebrate our hard work.

Bristol in general is a fairly expensive place to live. That being said, I was one of several placement students who were all there for the year. There was therefore a good group of similar people, all of whom enjoyed socialising even if it just comprised going to each other’s houses for dinner.

The nightlife was excellent in Bristol. I did not ‘go out’ as much as at University perhaps but always had a good time when I did. Bristol has a great music scene regardless of what your tastes are and I made the most of going to gigs and for nights out.

I am a keen climber and Arup has a subsidised membership to a local Bristol climbing wall. In my free time I therefore went climbing a lot and managed to get my colleagues into it too. The membership deal was so good that there ended up being a regular group of us at the wall.