Summer Placement (Processor Division) Review

The placement was incredibly interesting and fun. I had requested at my interview to receive a substantial project which required autonomy and responsibility and they fulfilled my wishes wholeheartedly.

My colleagues were all very friendly and were excited to have me working on my project, as it is something that they really required. The other placement students were all great fun, and the company paid for several pub lunches and other events where we got to spend time together getting to know one another.

My manager gave my constant support and guidance, meeting me 2-3 times a week other than when he was on holiday. He also performed code reviews to make sure I met the house coding style and came to check on me and help me out whenever I had problems, without having to wait.

Overall I give the placement 8/10 for busy-ness, because while I had a period in the middle of the placement where I was bored and periods at the start and end where I was busy, I never felt under pressure and I spent most of the time with a suitable amount of work to do. My manager made it clear that the project didn't need to be fully finished by the end of the placement, and so I generally worked at my own pace.

I was working on an entirely new hardware product that had the possibility of being licensed alongside a new, unannounced processor. I was given full autonomy to design the component following the specification I received, with the only restriction being the constraints of the house coding standards, which took some time to learn and some code reviews with my manager.

The skills I developed on placement were those that can't be learned from university, and will no doubt help me both with the practical work in my degree and with any future jobs/projects I undertake which involve hardware design.

Whenever someone came back from holiday or was hosting a weekly meeting, they would bring cake to the office for everyone to share. Some of my colleagues had rubiks cubes and juggling balls on their desks for you to play with while trying to solve problems. We chatted a lot during the day and had a generally relaxed atmosphere.

There was little required to be done on my part, other than finding housing nearby and organising my travel dates. Other than that, everything was taken care of.

I was given course materials for learning the hardware description languages I didn't know. I had as much 1-on-1 time with my manager as I needed to ask for help with things I was having trouble with. We also had weekly meetings introducing different parts of the company and new technologies to us.

The graduate opportunities are fantastic, allowing you to choose which division of the company you would like to work in and allowing rotations between teams within the division of your choice. The graduate pay is good, the holiday allowance is great and the other benefits are much better than many alternative companies.

I travelled to nearby towns and visited of museums and cultural centres nearby every weekend. The nightlife with other placement students was also active, for those who wished to take part.

The area isn't the cheapest. Rent was more expensive that I was used to at home, though the cost of food and such was reasonable. The cost of socialising was somewhat expensive, though it was quite cheap to travel down to London.

The nightlife wasn't particularly great, but it wasn't non-existent. For those who are interested, there is enough to get by.

There were a number of social groups within the company and with the university nearby, there were opportunities to take part in clubs like Salsa dancing among others.