Chemical engineering - Placement Student Review

My placement was very enjoyable I learned a huge amount over the course of the placement. I had the opportunity to work on very interesting projects and develop my engineering skills as well as improving my learning. It was a very valuable experience and was definitely worth doing.

My colleagues were helpful and willing to get involved if I needed their help as long as they had the time available. I felt valued by the people I worked with and people were willing to trust me to do work for them.

My manager would leave me to complete tasks and encouraged me to speak to people throughout the factory to complete the job and to develop relationships with other managers and engineers. However he was always available to lend help or advise if I was unsure or had any problems.

My work was mainly project based so some weeks I could be very busy when there was many projects at a time and some weeks it could be slower but if I felt I didn't have anything to do I would go and see one of the managers since they always had projects that needed time spent on them.

I feel I was given a great deal of responsibility I had the opportunity to work on projects that could make real difference in the factory. Being a placement student means sometimes I had to do jobs I found boring but these were few and far between most of the work I did I felt was useful and valuable to the factory.

I built up a good deal of experience over the year in many different areas and the skills I have developed will definitely be very useful both back at university and later in my career.

The office I worked in was relaxed, it was a large open plan space the people there were approachable if I need to speak to them.

The internship was very well organised British Sugar have had a placement scheme for a long time so it was all very easy to get going as they have done it all before.

British Sugar were very willing to invest in my learning and developmeant if there was any type of training I needed they would send me on the course. As a result I was able to get formal training for several different things that is also recognised by other companies not just British Sugar.

The graduate scheme at British Sugar is a very valuable one and there is a lot that can be gained from it. Towards the end of the placement there is an assessment centre for all the placement students that would like to apply for the graduate scheme.

The placement students at all 5 sites regularly met up and went out together and also "specialist" days were organised at each factory where all the students met at each factory and the placement student based there showed everyone around the site and explained to everyone how their placement was and how the factory operated.

I lived in Nottingham 30 minutes drive from where I worked it was relatively cheap, rent was reasonable and there were many student nights out during the week that are very cheap and at the weekend there is still plenty of places to go out that aren't expensive.

In Nottingham there is no shortage of nightlife and you can go out pretty much any night of the week if you wanted to .

As a group of placement students you can organise activities outside of work if you want it's really up to you if there's something you'd like to do you can organise it amoungst yourselves.