Industrial Placement Student Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my placement at Cummins, having the opportunity to work in four different departments was a great experience and the attitude of everyone at Cummins towards placement students were the two standout factors that made this placement so enjoyable. The level of responsibility given to me by my managers lead to real satisfaction in my work and the friendliness and approachability of everyone I encountered made me feel very welcome.

I felt vey valued by my colleagues, one of my main concerns when applying for placements was feeling that colleagues would view placement students as a burden to some extent. The attitude at Cummins couldn't be more different, everyone I encountered during my placement really valued the contribution of placement students. Managers of departments would go out of there way to get placement students in there team, we were given real responsibility for our projects and gave information and presentations to higher level managers and customers.

Support and guidance was excellent, not only from supervisors and managers directly but from everyone within the company. At the same time supervisors were happy to give enough freedom for students to make tasks there own when support was not needed. The attitude at Cummins was not only to help and support to get a task done but to make sure they have a thorough understanding for the next time they had to do it. In one instance when organising a web meeting with other Cummins employees in the US, I made an error in setting up the web connection, one of the invitees from the America contacted me via Cummins internal messaging and walked me though the whole process.

Although there is always going to be varying amounts of work in an engineering company I was always kept busy. By keeping my managers up to date with my progress they could plan ahead to ensure there was more work for me when I was done. The managers also planned out the work they wanted the students complete before they arrived meaning as one task was coming to an end there was already another waiting.

I was given complete responsibility for all the tasks I was given, support was always available but getting the work done and planning efficiently was down to me. On a number of occasions I was responsible for running some testing, from being told what my supervisors wanted to learn from the test I was responsible for planning the test, ordering custom test equipment, running the test and presenting the results in a technical review.

The skills I have gained have been invaluable. One of the most useful skills I have developed has been organising and prioritising multiple projects, I feel that the skills I have learned will really help me to keep on to p of my studies next year, especially my final year project. On top of that I have had a lot of problem solving experience which will be very helpful at university. One area I was aware I needed to improve on before starting my placement was giving presentations, after giving a number of technical reviews and quarterly update presentations to managers I feel that I have really come on in this area.

The atmosphere in the office was very friendly and relaxed, placement students and higher level managers sat in the same open plan office and interacted freely. This free interaction was very conducive to getting things done. I really enjoyed being able to walk over and chat with people about projects without having to go to there office or book a meeting etc. The prevailing atmosphere was that the office was working as a team.

The placement was very well organised, my time at Cummins was split into four rotations each in a different department. All the managers were ready with project as I arrived. Placement students were fully integrated into the company and could benefit from the same benefits and rewards as the full time employees. this included employee discount schemes, gym access and access to training.

The company made substantial investments in the students. A huge array of training was available, ranging from CAD modelling and public speaking courses to technical lectures and Six Sigma training. We had access to all the same training that the rest of the company and were encouraged to take full advantage of all the training available even if it was not directly relevant to the department we were working in.

The prospects of future employment are vey appealing, I am very hopeful to be able to return to Cummins when I finish my degree and am sad to be leaving. Cummins has such a huge global presence and people are encouraged to apply for roles outside of there current expertise. I feel that Cummins is a company with almost limitless potential in terms of career prospects all over the world.

The placement students regularly met up outside of work, often with other employees, there was also a health and social society we were all encouraged to join which offered subsidised events outing and even international travel. There were a good number of placement students at Cummins so there was always something to do. We were also invited to social events with our teams which was a great way to get to know them.

The cost of living and socialising was very cheap, I managed to rent a fully equipped flat that was a 20 minute drive from work for less than I had been paying for a room in a town house at university. With Huddersfield being a university there were plenty of student bars and clubs in the town center which was walking distance from the plant. As many of the students were from Huddersfield university most of the socialising was based around university events. The university of Huddersfield would even help with putting placement students in university managed accommodation.

The nightlife was perfect for placement students as it was centred around university students, this gave the perfect combination of plenty of events and places to go with the low cost aimed at students from the university. Another advantage was that the plant was less than five minutes walk from the town center, with most students living in the town center too working, living and going out were very close and convenient.

There was a wide range of activities to get involved in at Cummins, there were frequent football and badminton sessions along with the Gym. The sports and social club also went on frequent trips, days out and holidays. We were also encouraged to take part in the companies EEEC Scheme, this stands for Every Employee Every Community and is Cummins community involvement initiative. each employee is encouraged to get involved in community projects on company time. This could involve helping feed the homeless at a Cummins supported café in Huddersfield town center or delivering meals on wheels to working on a community farm or crewing canal bout cruses for the disabled. One of the most impressive projects was the canal boat cruse for the disabled, called the safe anchor trust, a retired Cummins engineer who had got involved with the project lead a team of volunteers, including engineers from Cummins to design and build a canal boat the at could cater for wheelchairs and operate cruses for the disabled.