RateMyPlacement
BAE Systems is an exciting company to have an industrial placement in - I had a good view of the way that the entire business ran, and had a well rounded day to day job. It was slow to start - beginning in the summer means that you start as many people are off on leave which can get in the way of on-boarding. That being said, once I was fully fledged in my role, it was definitely a good experience and an accurate taste of life working in the defence industry.
My placement was fantastic. Everyone I met was friendly and welcoming, and always willing to share their knowledge and help. My line manager was able to find me something that fitted in perfectly with the direction I wanted to take my course in my final year, and my future career.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at BAE Systems. It gave me the ability to experience a broad spectrum of the engineering opportunities available. Alongside a competitive pay for industrial students, it has enabled me to improve my professional and technical competencies. The attributes learnt during my placement will definitely help with my understanding of problems when I return to university.
Overall, I have really enjoyed my time at the company. My team were friendly, I had a fair amount of work to complete and there was plenty of support available if you ever had any issues (graduate buddy, line manager, graduate/placement manager). I do though think it can really depend on the role your placed in, as every placement is very different.
My placement year at BAE was very enjoyable and I would recommend to anyone looking for a placement which will both further your education and allow you to enjoy yourself during your placement year to apply for BAE. My role involved work and tasks that were challenging but very interesting. Overall, I had a very good experience and would recommend BAE Systems to anybody looking for a work placement.
I thoroughly enjoyed my placement it was unreal having the opportunity to work with so many amazing people and be able to go on ships as a part of my job. I did not know what to expect as I had never worked for such a large and fast paced organisation.
My placement at BAE Systems was really enjoyable. I was able to work on a range of different projects so expanded my knowledge in lots of different areas of engineering. The teams I worked with were all great too which always makes a big difference. My managers were always checking that I had enough work and that I was generally coping ok with everything.
I have really enjoyed my year here. I have learnt so much, from the basics of accounting (from a basis of nothing) to what it is like and how to deal with having real responsibility in a proper job, all in the context of the engineering industry. It has met my aspirations for the year.
I really enjoyed working here to the point I'm hoping to get a job back with the company when I graduate university. I entered into a role I've never heard of - project accounting which as I near the end of my placement has felt more of a hybrid of data analytics/project control/accounting. It's been a great experience, I've met some wonderful people and nothing can compare to working on a base with jets flying daily.
The placement started off well with team bonding and an induction week with the other interns. In the first few weeks I was given work and objectives but I completed these quickly. I did ask for more work and was given some but it wasn't enough. I was quite bored during my placement and didn't really feel like part of the team. I didn't really use my degree at all. I know other interns had different experiences but for the last half felt quite pointless. The best part of the placement was the social side with the other interns.
Overall, the 12 week internship was good, and I had the responsibility of delivering a multi-disciplinary project through its detailed design stage. This gave me valuable experience in defence product standards and general engineering standards, which shall be useful for my future career progression. The only set back was learning about the changes to the new graduate programme if I were to return to the business.
I found there was some variety in tasks assigned and the work undertaken was generally useful, but would have preferred more actual design work, use of software, and use of degree and practical knowledge. Instead there was a lot of editing documentation, spreadsheets etc. However, overall a useful experience.
I enjoyed the work when it related to my degree however there were often instances where I would be doing administrative work. The more I would ask for tasks the more enjoyable the tasks got. It was a good experience however due to the short duration of my stay I wasn't able to really get stuck into the work.
Personally did not enjoy much of it, hours were long and often spent doing nothing, requests for more work were often ignored and when I did get work there was little training and guidance for me to get it done well. Other interns enjoyed the experience more with teams that had more work available to distribute and more human resources to help acclimatise them.
Very engaging, variety of tasks to do and work did not seem pointless.
The work was very university course related and it gives you an experience into practising what you have learnt into a real world environment. Although during my internship there was a hold upon lots of jobs causing little work at times, for some that was an issue but asking for more work from others sorted the issue.
This placement was a good mix of challenging and interesting, and the pay was decent too. I had plenty of work to do, so there was no danger of being bored. The flexible working was especially nice as it meant that I could beat all of the traffic to and from work.
I would have to say that, overall, I have really enjoyed the internship and I feel that I have a gained a considerable amount of clarity in what path to take going into my final year of university. I feel that internships should ultimately give interns a true taste of what is it like to work within the company that they are with and I feel that BAE have been very successful in this regard.
