Learning & Development Intern Review

I would conduct monitoring reviews for students undergoing a rail engineering apprenticeship, in which we discussed their progress since their last review, ensuring that they are on track to graduate at the appropriate time, set targets and answer questions they may have. I was also responsible for the End-Point Assessment process, meaning I submitted all the required paperwork and certificates to EAL (awarding body) and set up a time for an apprentice's VIVA interview. Also other admin tasks

I became a lot more proficient at Excel, as this was the programme I used to keep track of the progress of every apprentice nearing their end-point assessment. I developed my organisational skills as part of this responsibility also, as I was held responsible for the entirety of such a crucial aspect of a student's apprenticeship, I had to be able to answer any and all questions from account managers and/or employers as to the progress of each student and the process of end-point assessment

At the start of my placement, it felt as if my employer did not need a placement student / did not have a place for them within the business, so for the first few months, I was making my own work to keep busy between the time-filling admin work they gave me each week. Though about 3 months in I was given regular responsibilities which certainly kept me busier and provided more responsibility, which I found beneficial

I received little guidance during my first few months, as they did not seem to have enough work for me, though when I was finally given new responsibilities I was provided with a few training sessions on how to conduct my work and a handover period of about a month from the co-worker whose responsibility it was previously. When given other tasks they were explained to me and if I required further guidance it was available upon request

The people with whom I worked in the office were all very pleasant, there were a lot of staffing changes over the 9 months I was there, but the atmosphere seemed to remain the same throughout. The people in my team were also very nice but I did not see them every day as most of them work remotely. Of course I had 1 or 2 negative experience with co-workers but that is to be expected and I do not let that dictate my overall opinion of the culture at Siemens Mobility

I was pretty bored throughout most of my placement, most days I did fairly minimal work as I was not given enough responsibilities. When I asked for more work I usually received a couple of menial, repetitive tasks that required no skill or thinking, so after a while, I stopped asking for more work and instead coasted on doing the bare minimum because that seemed to be all that they could provide me. There was 1 in-person event at a career fair which was really interesting and more enjoyable but that's about it

Yes

I would recommend that you apply for a more technical role than I did, I've seen many co-workers do good and meaningful work in their full-time positions within Siemens Mobility, and these individuals use more specialised technical skills. I.e. engineering teachers, account managers, directors, etc. When there is work to do that involves interaction with the apprentices and providing a level of value to the business and its customers (apprentices), then Siemens is a great place to work