Cocoa and Chocolate Solutions - GCT Review

I am thoroughly enjoying my placement at Mondelez International. Every day I am doing something different and facing new challenges as well as using my degree and continuing to learn along the way.

The team I am in is quite small and for that reason everyone know's everyone and is happy to help you. You immediately know who to talk to if someone is a specialist in one particular area and no one is ever to busy to give you their time.

My managers and supervisors in projects have given me a lot of guidance and have helped me fit in as well as learn everything I need to know about chocolate and the different processes. Regular 1:1's with my manager is great so she can support me when needed - however the option is always there to talk to her at any oppurtunity.

It varies - if I am running trials then I may be rushed off my feet all day in the pilot plant or sometimes I will be in the office doing work on excel. It is a good balance.

I understand you have to earn your responsibility in a big business like Mondelez, however I was given a lot of responsibility on my last trial with the manager going off sick for two weeks and then on holiday I was responsible for a big part of it!

I have learnt so far a lot of different skills such as communicatio skills and how to work in an office/lab environment I think will be very useful in the future. I am part of the Skills Scheme Team where we set up different ways to improve our skills for our future - e.g presentation skills. When I go back to my final year of university I think my ability to work hard and my time keeping and organisational skills I have learnt a long the way will help a lot - the techinical training will also be a huge benefit for me in the future.

I enjoy the atmosphere of my office - everyone is always happy to stop by and help you or have a chat. It's a friendly environment to be in.

I think it is organised well - there are a lot of placement students here and we all did our inductions to health and safety and different trainings together within our first few weeks.

So far the company have helped me gain experience in what I wanted to learn about. I asked to see a different team and go and shadow them and they were happy for me to do that. They invest a lot of time to your personal development and what you see as your strengths and weaknesses and how to improve on those.

Although there are currently no graduate schemes with Mondelez, with a big company it is always changing. If there is a space for you to come back once you have graduated and you have made a good impression then future employment is more likely.

There is about 20 placement students here - I lived at home for the first few months and recently moved out to live with another placement student here. We have a good social life with the other students as well as colleagues.

My new house is reasonably priced at about £80 a week inc. bills. Bournville is a very small town with only one pub but the train station is a stones throw away from my house so to get into and out of the city centre is only about £2 and about a 10 minute train journey. The city centre of Birmingham is quite expensive but there is a great shopping centre and restaurants in the city centre. Originally I was living with my parents outside of Birmingham and commuting in which was costing me about £7.50 a day on the train - and a very long train journey at rush hour; sometimes I wouldn't be back home until 8pm - so I decided to move out and live closer. Now I live about 30 sconds away from the office!

Having grown up around Birmingham I have always liked the nightlife here! Broad Street is full of clubs and bars there is always somewhere to go. Student nights are cheap to as there are quite a few universities here. In Bournville itself it has one pub - the Cadbury Club - so we tend to go into the city centre instead.

Since my time here I have been quite bust running different trials so I haven't had chance to take part in many activites. Having said this there are always community events and volunteering days which the company feel very strongly about getting everyone involved in.