Maintain Desing Integrity Industrial Placement Review

To begin with i did not enjoy my placement at all, the placement itself was not as advertised and i received almost no information before i joined up to the stage that i was not sure at what time i should arrive on the day i was due to start. Upon starting my placement the support was poor i wasn't really given any help adjusting to working in a business. It took me ages to find other areas of the business that interested me. Thankfully due to having a very supportive manager i was able to find secondments and projects in other areas of the business that supported the work i wanted to do and helped me develop myself. After 3 months of the placement i was really beggining to enjoy my time in the company and since finding my feet have had a wonderful time here.

I have mixed opinions on this, to begin with i feel there was a real lack of trust only being given very menial tasks with no project work. I feel i really had to prove how capable an employee i was before i was given any responsibility. All the responsibility i have been given i've had to work really hard to get and it has been a struggle but as i stated earlier i have a very supportive manager who has helped me find work and made me feel welcome.

My manager this year has been brilliant he has provided loads of opportunities for me to develop myself and has even helped me run improvement initiatives for the placement scheme. He really has been a champion of the industrial placement scheme here. He has taken particular consideration of when i was struggling and provided support where necessary he has also allowed me to find projects outside of the department which i have really enjoyed doing.

Daily i have been busy most of the time but feel that this is due to my drive to go out and find work when i have none. There are loads of other placements that i know have very little work due to them not going out of their way to find it.

I was given a varied amount of responsibility during the placement. I have had a few projects which i have been asked to run myself and have been completely in charge of. Much of my day to day roles however are supporting others in their roles so i often am only set very specific tasks with little responsibility. However recently i have been given a large project with much responsibility that is a great development opportunity for me. Its just a shame it came at such a late time in my plcement.

I've learned loads of skills here, i've learned how to develop myself as a person all about mentoring and getting the right people around me. I think i'm a much more rounded individual and have certainly grown up a lot more. I've learned about being pro active and making changes myself. This year has been highly educational and i will certainly use these skills in the future.

Very good, everyone in the office is super friendly including the managers everyone wants to help each other out and no one thinks they are above speaking to lowly industrial placements which is certainly very refreshing.

The placement itself was reasonably poorly organised there was no cohesive plan for the work i should be doing and certainly no central support from HR for industrial placements giving any advice on what we should be looking to do to structure our year, or any sort of advice on adjusting to the office for instance i didnt know that i could be being technically mentored this year until the very end of the year which meant that i had not effectively used the time i was here to its full potential as i cannot back date my work for the professional institutes

I have been on a few training courses since joining the company to help with my job role, i dont feel that the company has invested that much money in my training although i have had a lot of time given to me byu high up members of the company to help support my professional development so that has been good. It would have been nicer to do a bit more technical training and improve my technical skills further however i'm satisfied with how it has been

Future employment prospects are good the graduate scheme is supposed to be very good however it does not pay as well as other companies graduate schemes.

Yeah i set it all up without me regularly organising things for everyone there would barely have been any social situations arising had i not set everything up and found all the young people at the office to talk to and setup the mailing list and what not it would have been good if HR had informed us who all of the other industrial placements were when we started.

Cheap, although the placment offers less money than pretty much any other placement i applied to the area i lived in was very cheap and i've had plenty of money to spend on living and going out. Its been quite nice as its double what i earned as a student.

Poor to say the least, the clubs around gloucester are atrocious however the pubs are really nice and we made do with what we had. We often as a cohort go to the pub on a friday and have a few chilled drinks which is super nice. I suppose its alot nicer here than been in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah the STEM ambassador scheme is really good around here, i got involved in organising a residential educational course for year 9 students been involved in science fairs, company sports teams and going into schools. Also the IMECHE, IET and YGN are very active around this area so have gone to loads of lectures and events run by them this year which has been nice.