Placement Systems Engineer Review

NATS, as a company was not what I was expected when coming into an engineering office job, which is a good thing. There was plenty of work to do and many additional tasks as an early careers member, but everyone in the office were always keen to have a laugh, which was nice to see.

In both my placements I felt part of the team, invited to team lunches and getting involved in the lunch time quizzes.

I found that during my placement there was always an opportunity for support and guidance, even if the manager wasn't directly responsible for me. It was a great chance to speak to managers and ask about their careers as well being provided with specific and credible advice.

There were days where you wondered where all the hours had gone but naturally there were also some slow days too. There was always something extra to do, whether it was updating a log book, looking on our intranet site at the news around the company or organising charity events for the early careers scheme, it meant that I was always busy, which was a great thing.

The first of the two placements I was given a project to lead, I researched into the technologies and organised trials to demonstrate the applications of these emerging technologies. In my second placement I was part of a team implementing a new system, as part of the team I had to understand what and why this was happening to engineering at a level which meant I could go out and 'sell' it to my colleagues.

Social engineering skills played a big part in my development over this year, being able to converse with management and experts around the business to provide support and information in which was both credible and useful. During the placement there are many training opportunities such as presentation skills and radio navigational aids, all contributing to my career and personal development.

In both my departments the atmosphere was fun but still professional, everyone said good morning to each other and eventually good bye, which was nice to see. At NATS you are required to do your weekly hours, but depending on the department aren't required to be in at a certain time, this allowed the staff to be more sociable and enjoy their work day more.

The structure of the scheme was well laid out with continuous training and development opportunities available.

NATS were keen to invest in any training that you could justify would help towards your development and job role. As well as training there is an internal assessment day which provides an opportunity for all the engineering industrial placement students to be assessed, without new applicants, for the job role of a Direct Entry Graduate. This provided the chance to show how we have developed over the year almost like an exit interview.

NATS are currently going through a business transformation which will provide exiting opportunities in the future for engineering. Through this business transformation the engineering roles will still be required and there are always development opportunities meaning that after two years in a role you could move on to a different department around the business.

All of the industrial placement students ended up living in the Southampton, whereas all the Direct Entry Graduates lived in Portsmouth. Every now and then an event would take place providing an opportunity to be sociable however typically the students would remain in smaller groups and would socialise that way.

In Southampton there was always a pub with a promotional day, it was a matter of finding it. Due to the universities nearby Southampton was reasonably cheap to live in, if you didn't mind living in a student-ish house and areas.

As a student you would typically go out on a weeknight which were obviously considerably cheaper, like any location the weekends were always expensive.

There were many clubs not associated with NATS around the local area of Hampshire, but NATS also had it's own clubs as well. Things like go karting, cricket and netball were to name but a few.