Intern Review

I thought it was brilliant. I gained invaluable insight into what it's like working as an engineer, and what it's like working at Arup. The people were great as was the atmosphere. My colleagues let me get on with my worked undisturbed, something which I think is necessary when you work with self motivated people.

I had the opportunity to work on different projects and got to know most people in the team as a result.

Great support and guidance. My mentor always answered more than I asked. By that I mean; he didn't just answer my questions, he gave me the reasoning for the answer. This is essential to build an engineering judgement, which is what engineering is all about.

This depended on what project I was working on. At some point there wasn't that much work going around, which meant I didn't have that much to do. However, when I was assigned to a busy project, I had the opportunity to do as much work as I wanted

This depended on who I was working with. Some of my colleagues made me a part of the delivery team and I had key responsibilities while others just asked me to do tasks.

I got the chance to develop my excel skills, and also to learn two different CAD programs; MicroStation and WaterCAD. These technical skills will be utilised early on in a consulting career, and excel will probably be used throughout any career. I designed retaining walls which will be useful in my geotechnics courses. More importantly, I got an insight into how teams are run effectively, something that will be beneficial for my future career.

It was absolutely great. People were easy to approach and it was a very collaborative environment.

It wasn't that organised. It was the first year they had online applications for this role, so I think it might improve with time as they get more experienced. They had planned out which projects I would work on, but when those finished, or was running low on work there was no back-up. I realise that this is the nature of the business, since it is project based, but a bigger effort could have been made. It would also have been nice if they organised something where the interns could meet up and get to know each other. I realise that this is a bit difficult since people didn't start at the same time.

I received guidance from more senior engineers whenever I needed it. I didn't go on any formal training courses, but attended quite a few interesting lunch meetings

They are at par with the rest of the industry. Graduate salary is a bit lower than average, but I imagine that job satisfaction makes up for it. They have a clear organisational structure, where a graduate starts as a grade 2 and a director is grade 9. Some people said that it's best to leave and work for another company for a while, before you get chartered and then come back, but I imagine that goes for any company. It's going to be easier to take on more responsibility at a company where you're not thought of as a graduate.

There was Friday Pay Day Drinks on once every week which had a pretty good turn out. There were opportunities to go out with colleagues pretty much every Friday. They also organised some other events, like walks in the peak district and rounders tournament.

Very good compared to London, but pretty average otherwise I imagine.

Many pubs in the vicinity.

Yes, as previously stated, they organised other events.