Engineering Placement Student Review

I enjoyed the vast majority of my work placement with Faurecia. The work was varied and interesting, and the people I worked with made the day interesting. There were a lot of students in the plant, meaning that there was a good community in the offices, and we worked together to help one another. I also had the opportunity to go to Germany to visit one of the tooling suppliers which was definitely one of my highlights.

The majority of colleagues made me feel very valued and welcome about the plant. During the year I worked with pretty much every member of staff at one point or another, and all of them could see the work that I was doing and how I was trying to make a difference. The operators felt comfortable coming to me to ask for something to be changed or put into place, as they trusted that I could do the job to a high standard.

I was given a lot of support through the year, particularly by my supervisor. At the beginning of placement I had a 3 week handover with the previous student, which was invaluable as he showed me the basics of what I would be doing on a day to day basis. I worked a lot with technical experts in the engineering team, and they showed me a lot of things on the shop floor, particularly when working with toolings and on the robots.

I had a lot of work compared to a lot of the other students. I had very few days through the year where I was sitting at my desk doing very little. Most days would pass by very quickly, which to me is a good indicator that I had a lot of tasks to complete. On days where I was not allowed to work on project set up, I would try and find jobs to do by speaking to the operators and seeing if there were changes that they would want implementing.

I was given a lot of responsibility during my time with the company. There were only 2 of us dedicated solely to the JLR projects in the factory, and during my time there were 4 projects running concurrently that needed my attention. This responsibility meant that I was not treated like a student throughout the year, and I was being given tasks like any full time employee would be. This to me was a huge plus as it helped me to feel like I was really contributing to what was happening.

I think a lot of the technical skills I learnt this year were quite specific to the company, and won’t help me a lot during the completion of my degree. However, the soft skills that I have learnt and developed this year will hep me a lot during my degree and beyond. I have had to learn to manage myself a lot better to ensure that everything is completed on time and tasks are prioritised accordingly, and the personal skills that I have learnt such as people management and effective communication will help me a lot with my final year projects.

The atmosphere was very good in the office and around the factory. There were a lot of students and graduates, meaning that there were a lot of similar people I could go and socialise with at lunchtimes and after work. There was also a table football table in the canteen, which we would spend a lot of our breaks and stay after work competing on to prove who was the ultimate champion of the factory.

A lot of the placement was very well organised. The induction period at the beginning was set up very well, and allowed for us to learn a lot in the first 3 weeks. All the students had shop floor experience organised, which was very insightful as it gave us an understanding of what the factory was doing, and the student welcome and wrap up events were very well organised too. The coronavirus lockdown was very well managed too, and the plant manager and HR manager did a very good job to keep us all informed of what was happening,

I think that specific training is the area in which the placement required the most improvement. Apart from the handover, there was not a lot of formal training about how to do our jobs, and a lot of the skills had to be learnt on the job, through trial and error rather than through actual training. However, I did have 3 days of weld training organised during a shutdown week which was well delivered and interesting.

I would be be tempted to do the graduate scheme with Faurecia if the right opportunity were to open. The chance to get another masters qualification is very appealing and would certainly help me to progress my career in the long term. The VIE does sound interesting, but doesn’t appeal to me too much as I am settled in the UK and wouldn’t be looking to relocate to another country at this moment in time.

There was a good social scene amongst students. We we were fortunate as there was another Faurecia plant across the road, meaning that there were more students for us to socialise with and organise events with. We had weekly football, which was a good laugh, and we would always go for a drink as well, and we had organised events through the year, like going out for food and having a Christmas night out, bowling etc.

The cost of living was fairly reasonable around Fradley. Burton is not very far away, and the cost of living there is quite cheap, or Lichfield is a bit closer but a bit more expensive. The average pint in Burton is less than £3.50, and nights out aren’t very expensive there because they’re not very good. The commute to work from Burton is not very long, so fuel expenses aren’t very high for a week and don’t impact your finances too much.

The nightlife directly around Fradley is not the best. Lichfield and Burton both have limited clubs and bars, and we found that the best way to try and organise an event was to buy drinks and go to someone’s house. Birmingham is about 45 mins away on the train so that is an option, but can be expensive to get to, and your night is ruled by the trains, or else you have to fork out quite a lot for a taxi.

There was a lot of opportunity to do things outside of work. We organised a fair amount of activities outside of work like the weekly football, and that was easy to get involved in and everyone made you feel involved. There was also the company organised Family Fun Day, which was a great chance to socialise with people we normally wouldn’t see outside of work, and get to know them on a better level, as well as a chance to win some prizes.