Engineering Intern Review

Over my one-year engineering internship I gained a vast amount of experience and can definitely take this forward for my future career. I was exposed to all kinds of projects and learned a lot about business practice. It has definitely become the highlight of my CV and really was a way to prove my abilities in the workplace. I would have given 10 stars if my particular branch had given me more responsibility, and offered the same structured opportunity that GE's excellent graduate schemes offer.

GE has a great work culture, and you will be welcomed and people will be polite. I was amazed by the diversity in the office - we could go out on casual social events and every person would be of a different background. Even if you aren't welcomed (which I think is unlikely), there's plenty of HR support and people to turn to - GE are very careful about making their work culture as harmonious as possible. Nevertheless, I was often seen as 'the intern'. That doesn't mean I ended up making coffee or anything terrible like that, just that I often felt underestimated. Bearing in mind I had no prior experience, it doesn't surprise me that people would jump to this conclusion. It took a few months for people to actually acknowledge my abilities.

My manager was always helpful throughout the placement and was always a point of call when I was stuck with my work. People in the office are generally willing to talk about themselves and give advice and are willing to make time for you. 10 stars would have been given if they were to offer the similar strict structure and guidance that they do with their graduate programmes. It took me some time to settle in and actually establish what my responsibilities and job role was, and what they expected from an intern. To my knowledge graduate programmes get an external manager to guide them and ensure they are getting the best opportunities while liasing with the host business.

My role was driven by the projects the business was performing at the time - when times were busy, I was busy. When things were quiet, I would often try to find things to do. On the whole, the best times were when I was busy on on-going projects, but that does not mean there was no work for me to be doing. One thing I think you'll find is that you will be a useful resource, and if you ask around people will always find work for you to do if you are willing to seek it out.

I was able to participate in many global calls where my input was needed for projects worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, and was able to manage large implementations for the business which was exciting. However, I feel that these opportunities were down to luck more than anything else - as mentioned before, my work was driven by the activities of the business, so I was lucky to find myself in positions of responsibility. You may or may not get this if you work for GE. 7 stars is perhaps quite harsh given some of the tasks I performed, but I'm a person that craves as much responsibility as possible and was constantly trying to prove that I could do tasks that a graduate could be doing. In this respect, I was rarely given opportunities to be at position of risk (and thereby prove my worth) for the business. In reflection, this is not surprising either. GE will not give an intern a task that poses a risk financially to the business - for better or worse. As an intern, if you screw up, it's your manager's fault for letting you. You might be completely satisfied with the responsibilities I mentioned earlier, but I was craving a lot more.

I can't fault the skills I developed during my placement. I learned plenty about my engineering degree, business structure, health and safety, finance..... I was lucky in that my placement was very related to my degree, but it was a pleasure to learn about the other fields of engineering that go into a project. I'm a chemical engineer by trade, but I learnt the basic mechanical and electrical engineering that go behind projects too which was really interesting.

Atmoshpere. Pretty subjective. It wasn't bad, but wasn't great either. My particular office wasn't 'fun' as such, but as mentioned the people are welcoming so it's no issue. There are occasional events going on at work which bring a bit of life in.

This doesn't necessarilly mean that my placement content was bad, but the whole thing wasn't organised very well. It took around a month for my equipment to be setup and for me to actually be able to 'get to work'. As I mentioned previously, GE offer great structure and organisation to their graduate programmes and have some sort of regulation for them. Internships are much more site-specific than company-wide, so it depends on whether your site has a decent structure for your placement. I would have liked to see some overall internship 'body' by GE that ensure support and structure for their placement scheme students as well as graduate programme students.

I was able to attend a few decent courses paid for by the company, and GE offer a lot in terms of online training. People were very much interested in my university work and how they could help there. I would definitely say there's opportunity to learn a lot through the company, just ask the right people to make sure you find it.

Would have only rated 10 stars if they had actually offered me a job, but HR seem to love bringing back their interns, I guess it gives them a warm and fuzzy feeling. I think there's excellent opportunity for me to go anywhere within GE now that I've found myself in the organisation. If I chose to come back to my specific site, I think they would welcome me back without much hesitation.

The site I worked at was quite a quiet and friendly one. Wasn't a great social scene, but was fine knowing you're leaving in a year.

If you're in a manufacturing sector like me, you'll probably end up in the middle of nowwhere in somewhere that makes business sense to run a plant in because of its pricing. Along with that (probably) comes reasonable rent and living costs, which I found.

Copy/paste:If you're in a manufacturing sector like me, you'll probably end up in the middle of nowwhere in somewhere that makes business sense to run a plant in because of its pricing. Nuff said.

There are always opportunities, but you really have to know who to talk to and where to go, which is really hard when you're an intern. It comes down to luck, really.