Product Development Placement - Cummins Darlington Technical Operations Review

I was given a huge amount of responsibility right from the beginning of the placement. I had a slight lull of a few months in the middle where I had slightly less to do and slightly less exciting tasks. At Cummins you are used like a real employee which can occasionally mean that as the least experienced member of the team you are given some trivial tasks.

Fantastic atmosphere, felt valued 100% by manager and other colleagues. Brilliant working environment.

I was left to my own devices but support was there whenever I needed it.

Occasionally could get very busy, felt like a senior engineer at times. Also a slight lull for a few months in the middle of my placement where I was doing a lot of desk based jobs and did not really feel like I had enough pressure. This was partly due to circumstance at the company as we had just completed a very large program and were waiting for new work to start.

Took sole responsibility for company critical work. I was instrumental in the introduction of new products and was allowed to make mistakes and learn right from the start.

I was trained on industry standard software, had a support network of fantastic engineers around me. Learned an incredible amount and my manager was always prepared to invest in training me just as he would any other team member

I thought the atmosphere was brilliant - it wasnt all day laughs and I dont think a high pressure test and development environment ever will be, but everyone was very friendly and had time to answer my questions, whether about a piece of work, the weekend or the local area.

Cummins have a very structured programme for placement students. This involves several soft skills modules taught by the in house training centre on topics such as meeting etiquette and time management. There is also a scheme of charity work which all employees are involved in, and students take a leading role in this. I worked at the Big Bang STEM fair at the NEC, had the opportunity to take part in Young Enterprise, and also took part in a company scheme called Engineering in Schools, in which GCSE classes come to Cummins and we teach them for a day on Engineering and Careers. During my year there was a slight transition in leadership of this scheme which meant that for a section of the year it was a little unclear what the student group had to do in terms of the charity work which had been set out at the placement start. If it was not for this I would give 10 stars.

I was trained on industry standard software, including expensive training to become one of very few UK GT Power users. I was never left out of any training and my manager would always do his best to train me on things I showed an interest in.

I think Cummins are a great company to work for - the location will put some off but if you enjoy the job I think the move is worth it.

There are 20 students on site at Cummins between the engine business and emissions business next door. You all have to spend quite a lot of time together doing all the student modules and charity work etc which means you all get to know each other very well. The social was absolutely incredible - with 20 of us there was such a large group, and with such cheap rent (and drinks) in the north east it meant everyone had the means to go out and socialise. I felt my social on placement year was easily comparable to my experience at uni - at the start of the year I felt like I was on freshers!

One of the cheapest places to live in the UK. Very, very nice accommodation available for 170-300 a month depending on how many in a house/location etc. Food out, drinks etc also incredibly cheap, quite easy to find pints under £2. Southerners like me will be shocked at how cheap everything is. Gym membership in town is £15/month including gym swim and all classes and it is all pretty much brand new.

Darlington is not exactly a massive town but it has a few characterful places and the club is a reasonable size and not full of people picking fights. Everything is very cheap in general. Newcastle and York are both a short train ride away and they are both brilliant nights out, Durham is close also and has a university. If somebody drives (which out of the 20 students someone will) we had a great time driving round to different towns like Sheffield, Edinburgh etc all great nights. The best thing is you have a huge group to go out with and its cheap so it doesnt even really matter where you go.

Loads of opportunities with sports and social at work, lots going on. Just talk to people at work and you will find so much stuff to do, weekly football tournaments, trips out, bowling, archery, clay pigeon shooting, brewery tours are a few of the things I did.