Industrial Trainee Review

On the whole, I was dissatisfied with my placement. I found day-to-day I was working on quite menial tasks and despite the size of some of the projects I worked on, I felt that overall my part within them was insignificant and my own projects were those which had been left by others previous, this was most apparent when the work I had done was not to be continued after I left.

Without meaning to contradict myself, I found that the menial tasks were those which made me feel most valued. These were often tasks that I had sought out myself to try and fill in the gaps, by doing these I found that I got to know everyone in the office and around the department much better and the help was appreciated by everyone. Needless to say everyone was very welcoming when I first arrived and I am still in touch with a few of the engineers 6 months on.

I found my supervisor was often never around and when he was available he would often tell me to leave the work and try and give me something new rather than provide the guidance and support I needed to progress. This meant I often had to turn to the other engineers in the office and other parts of the department to get the guidance I needed.

Despite working on a few projects simultaneously, there was often a lot of time that needed to be filled while waiting for people to respond or deliver test materials etc. Unfortunately I wasn't provided with a large enough amount of work to fill these gaps and despite my best efforts to help people, I still found I had a lot of time with nothing to do.

I was given a decent amount of responsibility but there was no ramping up. I found within 2 weeks I had my own projects and deadlines but not the experience or knowledge to complete them and by the end of the placement the level of responsibility had dropped off when I would have preferred it to have been increasing.

I feel that the skills I developed across my placement will be of greater use when I complete my degree than they are at this present moment, however I don't feel I was given enough opportunity to try and develop or the support needed to get the most from my placement.

The overall atmosphere within the office was great. The engineers would often exchange banter and have a laugh while working making it a great environment to work in and a huge laugh.

I was given a list of projects and a calendar of how they hoped the year would play out. This didn't happen and the whole thing was scrapped quite soon after, but in terms of when I arrived it all seemed to be very well organised.

Not a great deal. The training available is all pre planned and quite limited while attempts to go on other training is normally turned down due to you being a placement student. The most development I found was the experience gained from working for a year in a manufacturing environment.

I would not return to Toyota, it was a worth while experience and I don't regret my decision to do a placement. The overall quality of my placement and the fact that the work I was involved in didn't engage me means I have no intention of returning.

The overall social scene was good but there were a number of graduates and placement students and we did something weekly. This was all off our own backs however and other than providing the contact details of the students/graduates Toyota provided no assistance at all.

Derby is a relatively cheap area with beer and housing being cheap in comparison to the south coast, although sharing accommodation definitely makes it a great deal cheaper as single bed flats are still quite pricey.

Derby nightlife is ok, the surrounding villages have some fantastic pubs which I personally found much more enjoyable. The city itself is fairly bland, nothing particularly stands out and the clubs are your run of mill clubs such as Mosh and Revolution.

Within my department there was nothing apart from the Christmas meal and my leaving do. No one really socialised outside of work or did anything together at weekends. I heard that other departments had a lot more going on but from my experience there really wasn't anything.