Geotechnical Scholarship Student Review

I had a very good time during my internship because I was kept busy with interesting projects while also giving the opportunity to attend site visits and other events in addition to my work. I know I enjoyed my placement because I looked forward to going to work in the mornings and because once it was over I realised how much I had learnt during my time there. I also really enjoyed meeting new people. I found it particularly good to do my placement simultaneously to approximately 5 to 10 placement students because it gave us the opportunity to share our experiences and help each other.

Everyone at the office was very nice and helpful. Despite joining the Atkins team for a short period of time, everyone would be happy to help and share their professional experience with me. I also found the concept of 'buddies' very helpful: a graduate engineer would be assign to each new intern as the first person to go to with any questions. My buddy was very helpful and also helped introducing me to other staff members in the office. My line manager was very helpful and welcoming and I appreciate her efforts to involve me in projects relevant to my studies and personal interests.

I consider I was very well supported by my manager because I was always kept busy without being overwhelmed with work. I was given the opportunity to take part in many different projects and always given the option to ask for council or additional information if I needed it. I was also given freedom to organise my time and have the responsibility to schedule my work by being given tasks in advance and/or having secondary tasks to complete during the periods I was less busy.

I was kept busy everyday. As far as I am concerned, this is a good thing because I wanted to do the most of my placement and I wanted to use my time at the company to learn as much as I could. While busy, I was never overwhelmed with work: I was given work in advance and I had the responsibility to manage my time and deadlines myself. This was both very rewarding in terms of developing my time management skills, and a good way of keeping my work balanced on an everyday basis.

I consider that I was given a lot of responsibility in my work because I was responsible of managing my time in order to achieve a target set in advance. The amount of responsibility was beneficial for my self-development but I was also given the necessary support from experienced members of staff who would be responsible for checking my work. Overall, I think it was a good balance between responsibility and security, because I had the insurance of knowing that my work would be checked at the end and that I would be given feedback in order to improve my next submission.

Even though my internship being specialised in Geotechnics, the skills I developed during my placement were not only specific to this field of engineering. In addition to time and responsibilities management skills, I also developed communication skills during the preparation of presentations and official reports as well as during my teamwork at the company. What I learnt form this experience will be valuable both for my last year of academic studies and for my professional life in the future.

Very good atmosphere with a lot of social events: pub lunches and pub drinks on fridays, graduate social events... Everyone was very friendly and welcoming.

Very well organised because a summer intern was considered as completely part of the company. We were set up with a personal Windows account, drive, email... We were also given an access badge and asked to go through all the H&S inductions as a fresh graduate would do. While this might seem obvious, I have seen in other companies how an intern is not granted the same things as a member of staff which makes the overall experience less good and I personally felt much less appreciated (in terms of work) in those companies. I think the overall internship was very well structured and at the end of it I felt that I had contributed with my work as much as I had learnt from it.

I consider that the company invested both time and resources in my personal training and that in addition to the scheduled trainings I was given the necessary support from my project supervisor or line manager during my time at the company.

Following my placement I decided to apply for a graduate position at the company. I was very lucky because I was contacted by the company to attend an interview for a position. I still have to do the interview but I am hoping I will get an offer. This placement definitely made a difference in my chances to get a job at Atkins next year!

Very nice atmosphere both between summer interns and between colleagues. A lot of social events to attend to showing the effort of the company to encourage a good social scene in the work place.

N/A as I was commuting from home. (1st part) The cost of socialising was balanced with event prices ranging from cheap (organised by company) to more expensive (in an external organisation).

Very good. I didn't attend all the events as I had to commute but the ones I attended were very nice!

N/A as I was commuting I wouldn't be able to get involved in activities outside the working hours.