summer placement student Review

I really enjoyed my placement and learnt so much from the experience. I decided to take part in a summer placement before starting university and by the end of my placement knew I had made the right decision, I now definitely know I want to be part of the construction industry. My favourite part of the placement was being out on site and using all the different instrument that the engineers use.

Over the placement due to my little experience on a construction site, I have just been shadowing a site engineer. However, for me in my position it wasn't really about going out and having ago at things on my own, it was more important for me to learn how to do things. By the end of the placement I was able to competently set up the instruments and be around on site. My Buddy and the rest of my team seemed to value me near the end of the placement as they gave me tasks to do.

I shadowed a site engineer for my placement and went out with my Buddy onto site everyday, so we became good friends. When my buddy went away on holiday I was out with other member's of the team who were just as friendly. My line manager also kept checking in on me regularly and gave me plenty of good advice for later in my career.

I went out everyday onto site and through shadowing my engineer we were kept really busy. Everyday there was something new and different to. If we were ever in the office, then the team would give me tasks to do or I'd read drawings and construction manuals. I think the more you put into the placement, then the more you get out of it.

As I have limited experience in the construction industry and with civil engineering I was given relatively little responsibility, however the skills and knowledge I learnt made up for this. I didn't mind that much about this, as I hope that with future placements, with either Costain or another company, and time at university I will be given more responsibility on site.

having joined the placement scheme before university I learnt a lot about how to behave on site, health and safety, engineering and the instruments they use. This experience will give me a big head start at university, in the lectures or during the other modules I will have experience to refer back to and be able to relate the theory to my time on site.

The atmosphere was awesome, everybody was friendly and open, if you asked anyone for help then people wanted to contribute and help you back. I didn't meet one person at Costain who wasn't like this which was really nice. On site all the operatives and foremen on site were friendly and talkative. I worked in a team of 4 site engineers, a section engineer, with a senior engineer, agent and senior agent above us, I got on with everybody really well and I like to think they enjoyed having me around. Over the time of the placement I went out with people from the project Kayaking and playing football, which Costain organised as team building events.

The Undergraduate team were really good and prompt in telling you what was happening and the things you had to do. They also took the time to visit you on your placement and check up on you at regular intervals.

I learnt so much from the placement and the experience gained will stay with me for the rest of my career. Costain has taken a big risk in accepting me onto their placement scheme having had limited experience in the industry. I'd like to say this risk paid off, and the knowledge I have learnt will be a fantastic building block for me at university.

Very good as Costain has won more big projects and currently its sectors are full of business. Due to the friendliness and openness of the people employed by them, this is also a keen prospect for people to join the company. Also the scheme is set up to recruit graduates and others who potentially could be sponsored through university and entered into the Costain graduate scheme.

There was only one other summer placement student on my project and we got along really well. I also met some of the other placement students through the conference calls which were organised at points through the scheme.

Costain looked after me really well and covered my expenses for petrol to and from work.

I only went out once for an engineers leaving do because of the 50min time it took me to get to and from work, but from what I heard from the other engineers the nightlife in Lancaster was decent.

Yes, the Costain team organised Kayaking and football as activities when I was there. These were really good and I got to know a lot of the team through them.