Industry Placement Student Review

I enjoyed being involved within a professional engineering company, because i learnt what sort of thing i will be doing once i graduate. I liked the attitude of the Engineers i was working with, they were very happy to stop what they were doing an help me with what i was doing. i didn't do as much Civil Engineering as was promised, but i learnt a lot of valuable skills that i will take with me in my career. I liked the amount of freedom i was given when doing work, i was left to do it, and didn't have someone always looking over my shoulder to see if what i was doing was right.

I really liked my colleagues, from the first day they were very friendly. They always helped me if i got stuck, and were happy to stop doing their work and talk to me about what sorts of projects they have been involved in. They also were very friendly and always let me go on their social events and let me go for a walk with them at lunch time. I very much felt like one of the team because they treated me just like any other engineer.

My Line Manager gave me lots of support and guidance. he was always willing to talk if something was bothering me, and he did his best to get it fixed. We would have frequent informal meetings to see how things were going and to fix any concerns I had. i didn't really have much contact with the rest of the management team, but the one other person i had contact with was very willing to help, and was happy for me to ask him things if i needed to.

I wasn't very busy at all, there was not much work that i was given to do, so i spent most of my days looking through text books and looking at what i will be studying at university. When i was doing work, i was busy but it only lasted a week or two at most. My second 6 months i was busy all the time, seconded to a client.

I was given quite a bit of responsibility, specially when i was seconded to the client. I was left to do my work and didn't have anyone looking over my shoulder all the time. I had someone that always checked up on my every day to make sure i was okay with what i was doing, but never had someone looking at what i was doing all the time. I was just left to it.

I learnt a lot of valuable skills, mostly to do with how professional businesses work, but also to do with the different areas of a business. I learnt a lot about what the procurement department and the project controls department do. I also learnt what engineers do on their day to day life.

The office was great, everyone was really friendly and chatty. They were all willing to stop their work and have a conversation with me. There was always food out from their holidays. The engineers i was working with would always offer to make drinks, so it was very chilled even when everyone was busy.

I wasn't as organised as it could be, but i think that was because there wasn't the sustainable amount of work there. it took longer than normal to get the login details and other induction things. the induction but wasn't organised at all, but that was due to various problems. getting security clearance was quite a laboured process and could have been done quicker.

I was invited to dose training on structural mechanics of beams. This was a 2 day course that all the civil engineers were invited to go to. They also asked me to do the 2 day introduction course, this was based at a local hotel, so i was put up in a room for the right, and all the food was paid for.

I think i might consider working for Atkins again, but it all depends on the work that they have available. i don't want to go on secondment for years, because this is not what i want. but if they have the right sort of work, i would quite like to join them after university or sometime in the future.

I didn't meet any other Placement students, which wasn't very good. But my work colleagues were very sociable, we went out various times in the year. The office did a quarterly social, which i went on. these were events where most of the office turned up, and we did various activities.

I lived at home, so the cost wasn't very high. the socialising was quite cheap because Atkins subsidised most of it for us, so we only had to pay for the extras. The overall cost wasn't very high because i could cycle to work, so didn't have to pay any petrol costs.

It is good, there is a nice pub near the office that is quite cheap. Also there is easy train routes into two big cities that have a lot of things to do and socialise. the cost of this wasn't too much because train was cheap. The centre of warrington isn't that good for nightlife, but there is a few places that are okay.

There was a few activities that i could get involved with outside of work. There were some socials, and not a lot else. I hoped that there was few more events like golf days or other corporate days. The quarterly socials were very much along the same theme which wasn't that good, but most of the office came so it was okay.