Undergraduate Product Development Engineer Review

I think the main downside, if any, of working for JLR is that your enjoyment of the placement will be largely affected by the department you are assigned. I would say I have been lucky to be placed in body engineering (seating systems) as there is a lot going on and there's usually something interesting to get involved with, but make sure you go for an area that you're really interested in and don't just base your choice on what others have said. I think the people who get the most value out of their placements here are the ones who are doing something which fits with their past experience and interests.

It's like any workplace: talk to people and you'll find people you connect with and people you don't. I think if I could do it again I would try to be more open from the beginning. It can seem really intimidating going into a large company, especially if you have limited work experience as I did, but it's important to realise that your colleagues aren't actually that scary. Even managers are people too, so by all means be keen to impress, but make an effort to interact with people on a personal level too.

I can't fault my supervisors here, as they've made every effort to answer my questions and support me throughout my placement, and they are fundamentally a great bunch of people, especially my line manager. Having said that, the company has a lot going on at the moment, and as such they really are phenomenally busy, so expect to work quite independently. No matter how well you get on with your bosses, they probably won't have time to sit and go through things with you for hours on end. Try to get names out of them of less senior people who know their way around the subject matter - you will get a lot more detailed help out of them with the added bonus of getting to know your team.

Again, this has a lot to do with your department allocation. Some people have been bored here this year, and some have had absolutely ridiculous workloads. I think I have had a reasonably good balance in body engineering, although things were a little slow for the first few months. If you're in a team as busy as mine, you need to keep pestering people for things to do at the beginning, otherwise people do have a tendency to forget you're there. Nobody knows what your abilities are at first, so it's up to you to make them known.

Continuing from above, don't be disheartened if you don't get given much responsibility to begin with. The great thing about being here is the steep learning curve. If you keep seeking out work, and doing a good job of it, there's definitely something of a "break point" where people will begin trusting you with more and more responsibility. If you hear about an interesting meeting, ask if you can go to it, and if it looks like there's any interesting work coming off the back of it, ask if you can represent or assist your manager with it. The worst that can happen is they will say no, and the best that can happen is that you end up on a very high profile project and get to meet the CEO (I did!).

Because JLR is involved with a lot of suppliers, and because the projects generally take a long time, I do think I have been somewhat removed from the technical side of things which are relevant to the actual subject matter of my uni work. What I think this placement has prepared me for is being more effective at delivering that work. I am a lot more confident now in my time management, people skills, and work documentation, and I have also been lucky enough to learn a lot about how customers interact with a product. I think that everything I do from now on will be more thoroughly thought through, and executed to much higher standards. I also feel a lot more comfortable interacting with professionals, and I think from a uni point of view this will help me get what I need out of my lecturers, whereas before I may have felt intimidated.

Depends how much work is going on, but people will normally find a few minutes to have a chat. It's quite a professional environment, particularly where I am (a large open plan area), so there's not much messing around, but it's certainly not unpleasant or cold.

Pretty good, it was nice that all of the undergrads were put in touch with each other via facebook. HR were very easy to get hold of and very helpful when I needed them, but it might have been nice to have some organised visits from them just to make sure everything was going ok, as being in a large company like JLR can feel a bit isolating at first.

Slightly disappointing on this one. Company policy seems to be to not train undergrads in their CAD system due to funding, and it is VERY difficult to get a Class 2 driving test booked (which you need to drive a lot of the cars). That said, I've been quite wrapped up in my work here, so I wouldn't say I've felt like I was massively missing out, it would just be nice to get a few official qualifications under my belt.

I've been offered a grad scheme position, which sounds great. I'm planning to accept and I think there could be an exciting future here for me.

Definitely a good social group among the other undergrads. As stated before, we were put in touch via facebook and have all gotten on very well. There's around 16 of us and it's been a lot of fun.

Money can be a bit tight here. The rents are pretty good in south Leamington, but I moved to the town centre during the year to live with my girlfriend, and the cost of running our small one bedroom flat has been pretty astronomical. Make the most of your early job offer if you're on a year long placement and get your accommodation sorted asap.

Can't really comment on this one, as I have a lot of commitments elsewhere and have actually not spent many weekends in Leamington. I've heard good things though.

I think inter-departmental football is about it.