Materials Management Review

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Vauxhall meeting new people, gaining new skills and knowledge and applying my academic skills to the job and company. It has been a valuable experience and has given me access to a more professional development in a global company. I have been able to learn through shadowing other areas of the business that insterest me to understand the business more as a whole.

I have felt highly valued by my collegues and I get along with everyone in my department. They treat me with the same responsibilities as more permenant employees. Allowing me to sit in meetings and contribute ideas and other approaches.

I regularly have a one to one with my manager to go through any projects and tasks that i have been or are currently working on. They are here for help and support if I need it. I also have a mentor that I see once a month to support me if I had any issues or if I need advice on career paths or shadowing other departments.

I would have regular routined tasks that are required on a daily basis. This can take up most of my mornings. Since working with systems and programming there are always processes to improve and problems that may occur so require problem solving and research to find a solution. This is quite time consuming so your day will never go too quiet.

I was given quite a lot of responsibility being in charge or running certain processes and analysing them to ensure the data is correct before sending them out to those in UK and Europe. If there are are projects on processes that need in improving to become more efficent, I would be responsible for creating those to reach the end goal.

In terms of IT skills I have gained a lot in Excel and Access Databases. This is very important for me to take on throughout my studies and into my career roles. I have gained confidence and self esteem with interacting with others. This will of course help me with communication skills. I have also developed skills in problem solving and attention to detail as this will be needed when writing coursework or thinking about ideas to come to a solution.

The atmosphere is very friendly. Its not too quiet and now and again can always have a laugh with your collegues. Everyone gets a long very well and sometimes get a team together to play a friendly sport which is always great fun.

It was very well organised from the moment of applying to being eased into the job role with help and support. You have a 2 week handover period where you sit with your current undergrad of that role and they can help you through what the role entails. Having social events during this time gives a better advantage of getting to know other new undergrads.

We get quite a bit of training to help us improve on IT skills. For example I have been on Excel courses and Access and VBA Programming courses. The VBA programming was something that I wanted to do and the company was more than happy to invest in me to take a couple days training for this as it is a vital part of my role.

The company does not offer graduate schemes however if I was interested in working here in the future I would be able to go to the right people to help me go in the right direction.

Defintely a good social scene. We have a close group of undergrads and are always planning trips and weekends away. Theres also a lot of sport that undergrads take part in.

The cost of living is quite reasonable about £350 average and there is a few places for socialising apart from pubs but its also nicer to go out of Luton and socalise in other places like London which is not far.

The nightlife is ok. We tend not to do too many nights out in the area as we found it better doing city breaks for long weekends. But now and again its a good laugh.

There are quite a few opportunties especially in sports and gym.