Student Quantity Surveyor Review

Honestly, I really enjoyed it. Learned a lot by working with the team of professionals, they all had a lot of time for me and was happy to show me anything or let me ask them about anything I didn’t understand, which was a lot of the time considering I have only completed the first year of my degree. They helped me settle in and feel welcome into the group. Also, the placement that Costain had arranged for me did enable me to gain the basic skills and understand in more depth the role of a Quantity Surveyor. I also enjoyed everything that I was set to work on, some aspects were hard but it was a learning curve of the way you are expected to think and analyse information.

My colleagues helped me settle in and were happy to help with anything I was unsure of. They treated me with respect and gave me areas of responsibility which showed they trusted me. Working with them as a team helped build my confidence and learn from their experience.

My line manager would help me or if he couldn’t he would direct me to someone who would have more knowledge on the subject. Considering how busy he was he gave me a lot of time to help me with any queries or questions. However, it was good because he gave me tips or pointers as to how I might find out the answer for myself so I was learning from the exercise.

I was always busy. There was a backlog of work that always needed working on which was my main area of responsibility, so this was where the majority of my time was spent. However, as I had 5 objectives, it involved working with different people in the team, learning about what they do, gaining background information and then using that to complete the objective set. Also, I had to gather information from other teams to help me with my tasks from week to week set by Costain.

The areas of responsibility I was given was an area that I was comfortable with so I could manage. It was a good balance because it motivated me to be more productive and organised. This also helped me gain more out of my placement so I would say it was a good balance that helped learn a lot from my placement.

I will definitely be looking at my degree in a different light now, I will look at the bigger picture and hopefully when we start to do work looking at forecasts, budgets and costs, I will already have experience and have better skills when analysing the data. If we are given a scenario where we have to find a solution to problems, I have a better understanding of how to approach it as I have more knowledge of the expected job role of a quantity surveyor.

There was a good atmosphere in the office, a friendly team which all got along. My colleagues were easy to communicate with and happy to help with any of my questions.

I think the set up of the placement was excellent, we were given an induction day in the Costain head office which involved even the C.E.O of the company coming in to talk to us, it also involved people who work in different areas to help us with what to expect from our placements, there was a presentation by previous students who did placements for Costain and how to approach the placement and what to expect, I felt the induction day was really beneficial. Also, on my first day everything was prepared and ready for me to start. I was given an introduction to the whole office so everyone knew who I was and why I was there. Also, if I had any questions when I was on my placement regarding anything with HR there was always people to contact at head office.

I was asked to complete a supervisors’ health and safety test which shows I have a certain level of competence and would enable me to go on site on my placement. They also paid for this exam as I could claim it back through expenses.

Hopefully, after my placement I can gain sponsorship with Costain, this has been my main goal. If I was to gain sponsorship I could then work with Costain each summer and after graduating, be part of the Costain Graduate Programme, which gives you a job straight out of university and helps you become Chartered at the start of your career which will benefit you straight away. The prospects of working with Costain are also really good as they do have the opportunity to work internationally, they are also pushing for you to continuously improve, and they also give annual pay rises if you meet your targets. So hopefully, I can get a job with them!

There was another student on placement from Costain, we worked well together on the team and he shared his experiences as he had worked on previous placements with Costain and was currently sponsored by them. I also was able to ask him about the course in the second year of university and what work he did.

I lived at home whilst I was on placement so this doesn’t really apply to me.

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They did have golf societies but none had been organised during the time of my placement, but I was welcome to join the society.