Mechanical and Electrical Engineer Review

I enjoyed working within a professional environment and learning about the positions within the office. The project was very interesting overall and I was happy to work on it and continually learn new information every day.

Everyone in the office has been very friendly and helpful. The company I am working for is part of a joint venture, I found colleagues from the other companies were also very welcoming and keen to help with queries.

I was given the appropriate support by management. Tasks were talked through before being assigned to ensure clarity, then the work was left up to me, the management didn't continuously check upon how you were doing, I found this useful as it allowed me to try and solve problems for myself before asking for help.

On occasion I felt that I didn't have enough work to keep me busy. Most days I would have enough tasks to keep me occupied but I feel like I would have benefited more from the placement if I had been given a larger work load.

Given a fair amount of responsibility throughout the placement. My line manager who is in charge of the steelworks package on this project set me the task of producing an invitation to tender (ITT) for the CMS (Cable Management System). After initially being briefed on the task I was left to produce this document. The help of my line manager and the procurement team was available but I believe I achieved a fair amount on my own.

Throughout my time here I have learned many new skills and improved on existing ones. I am much more confident in presenting to large groups, I can communicate better with other colleagues. I have also improved my technical knowledge which will be valuable in future jobs and helps provide a link between what I study and how it can be applied.

The atmosphere in the office is usually very good, everyone is happy and friendly. Most people meet up socially after work a few nights a week, there are also organised sporting activities such as football and badminton. I find that this organised sport helps to bring people from different parts of the office together and is a way of getting to know many new people.

This is probably the only negative comment I have about my internship. Initially I did not find out about the location of my placement until 2 weeks before the start date. This left me in a struggle to book accommodation and overall made the move away from home much more stressful. Also once we had arrived at our placement it became apparent that we had only just been confirmed onto the project, this meant that the first few weeks were slow (in terms of work) as no one had time to organise work for our arrival.

The company encouraged us to complete Health and Safety tests in order to receive a CSCS card which would allow us to carry out site visits. They also organised to send everyone on the placement to TUCA for a day to undergo a tunnelling course.The company covered the expense for both of these training events. Also arranged some CBS training which encouraged us to look into our behaviour and to describe it in a different way.

The company have many things to offer to anyone looking for a job in engineering. As Costain are involved in so many different sectors there is a large amount of variation available for their staff. The also look to help as many people as possible achieve chartered status within a short period of time.

There wasn't a lot of social interaction between the fellow placement students. However between other colleagues some things were organised.

My placement was in central London so it wasn't cheap. Accommodation was very expensive along with weekly travel costs. Luckily we were given an allowance for these things which helped significantly. Eating out/drinks etc was also quite expensive.

Central London has many nightlife opportunities. Not being from the area though, and as none other placement students were keen for nights out I never got to experience the nightlife. A few drinks after work was all that usually happened.

There was options to play badminton or football after work on Tuesday and Thursdays.