Industrial placement Review

My position in the operations team gave me a great insight into what I want to do in future, it allowed me to challenge myself by working with the efficiency team, and work with plant engineer and desk operators on shift. Although the roles were clearly challenging, they were challenges that seemed worthwhile pursuing.

Despite working with a variety of teams for only short periods at a time, I found the majority of people welcoming, many going out of their way for me. The teams on shift seemed to all work to a common goal which allowed them to achieve sometimes very complex requirements in a pressurd situation.

I had a variety of supervisors due to the short period and my spending time in so many different departments. Despite that, most managers seemed to try to help me get the most out of my time there, with the ops team leaders having a pastoral care over the development of their staff.

The busyness varied from week to week. My first few weeks there was a problem with a delayed page, do plans for me changed, and I ended up during in an office with nothing to do, having to try to find things myself. Once I started working with the WEC and shift workers, this changed, and I ended my time with a project for the chemistry and efficiency department.

My roles were largely supervisory, apart from my final role in which I was set to do modelling of pump performances. Due to the nature of being in a control room, I tried to take a step back, and only ask questions when it would cause minimal disturbance to the teams.

Realising how teams operate in high pressure situations was insightful, also how many of the pressures of the job are not necessarily technical, but logistical and with your personal lives. I also learned some relevant practical applications of theoretical subject matter learned at university, my time with the efficiency department helped hugely here.

The vast majority of the people there were incredibly friendly and helpful. That some members seemed to go out of their way for me really impressed me. There were a few homophobic comments made by one member of staff during LGBT awareness month, who thought I'd be like minded and agree with him, which seemed inappropriate, but oddly, I think it was because he thought he was being friendly to me. There are some still working in old engineering businesses who behave like this and it seems to be common according to my friends who have worked for other similar companies so is not a criticism of this company, as most staff seemed very inclusive, and efforts were being made.

I was given a number of roles, initially factors outside of the managers' control, namely a delayed outage, forced things to be delayed, but the fact I got to acheive so much in such a short period was down to the flexibility and efforts of many people in the operations team.

This was a short period, so no specific training was given, however the opportunity to shadow multiple people greatly facilitated me.

Unfortunately it appears that limited positions are available for people learning my discipline, only one role the previous year, which is a shame as many of the people I was working with had studied the same degree programme, and so limiting roles by specific degree programmes seemed to pigeonhole graduates.

I was not there long enough to know this.

Costs were generally low, however accommodation prices go up during periods when many contractors come on site. Where I was living there were a few towns, with many supermarkets within 30 mins, plus motorway and train links for visiting family. The nature of the business is generally isolated locations, however, so other locations may not be the same.

It is a suburban area, by the sea, there are late night bars, and nearby a university city, however it is a small population area so not as bustling with life as much larger towns and cities. There are a variety of restaurants and takeaways though, to cater to any tastes.

I was not there long enough to know this.