Engineering Intern Review

I derived a great amount of enjoyment out of my placement. The most impressive element was the extent to which I was allowed to participate and contribute, especially with past work experience placements that I have had.

My colleagues were extremely friendly and accommodating - this can especially be said for the other Bechtel employees that I interacted with.

The Bechtel staff that was involved with my placement did a first-class job of making sure I got the most out of my placement by organizing fantastic events that allowed an increase in daily activities. These included meeting people form higher-up in the company, getting even as high as the president and COO in a worldwide conference call. On a more daily basis, I was given a great amount of work to do and ended up learning a lot. My de facto supervisor was (understandably) too busy to see me often enough during my placement, so I worked under a non-Bechtel engineer. This however was not a problem as I had a very rewarding time there.

I am greatly pleased to say that I was never without things to, a problem I have had at different placements more often than not. Even when I had finished my job, there was always another one awaiting me. The structure I had was that I had one major task to do (which took me nine weeks) and minor tasks interspersed throughout my time. I was also consistently able to complete work at a comfortable pace and was never pressured to complete work before was reasonable.

I was given more responsibility than I ever have before during work experience. This mainly comprised of preparing documents and spreadsheets for engineering meetings. Towards the completion of the project however, I had no impact, which is unsurprising due to my age and lack of qualifications. Nevertheless I have done work which is expected to greatly help the field engineers after I left.

As I have just entered my second year of university, I have most likely not seen the full effects of my placement on my skills. However, I am confident that my knowledge that I gained from my placement will begin to surface this coming year, as I have a large amount of work surrounding Civil Engineering, which I anticipate to echo the activities I experienced onsite as well as in meetings that I attended.

The office atmosphere was very busy due to the importance and difficulty of the works being carried out onsite. Thus I was always able to lend an ear to the room and hear something being spoken about our work. The people who worked near me were all of one cooperative, friendly mind who were always happy to help. A strong sense of responsibility was exuded from many, who were quite inspirational to me, regarding how one ought to work in an engineering-centric workplace.

There ended up being countless instances were Bechtel surprised me by setting up events for the interns in ways that were helpful, valuable and sometimes unexpected - in a good way! These would typically be times where we were given invitations to events or treated extremely hospitably by Bechtel staff. Organisation at my site was impressive an accommodating. Aside from a small moment when I first turned up onsite and I wasn't sure how to prove that I was the new intern for security's sake, I have been looked after perfectly as an intern.

Although I neglected to capitalize on the opportunity, interns are able to take a small course and test to earn a CSCS card, which shows that one has the responsibility to go out on site unsupervised. Furthermore Crossrail, the project I was working on, offers endless online training courses and links to schools and colleges, such as tunneling and construction schools.

A year before my placement, I had a short work experience placement on a similar site on the Crossrail project. Although at the time I was not a Bechtel employee/intern, I heard their praises sung by many respected and experienced workers. It was also during this time which I was sold on Civil Engineering as opposed to selecting another discipline to specialize in at university. This placement went further than that. From the point of view of an actual employee, I saw how well Bechtel treats its employees, now matter how small, and how people respect Bechtel employees in the office and onsite. I would be honored to have such a placement again and eventually become a permanent employee. In my mind at least, this is my main long-term goal with regards to my post-university career.

Despite being the youngest intern at the time - a nineteen-year-old in a crowd averaging 22 - I got on very well with the others. We all enjoyed discussing our work and our times so far at our various universities. We frequented a bar near Bechtel UK's HQ and also organizes meetups on our own, including a trip to Chinatown after work one day. We also met at any Bechtel-organizes events. The staff onsite, Bechtel or not, were incredibly friendly and sociable despite the demanding work environment.

Yeah, the placement was in London so...... We had to finance our trips to meet up ourselves which would have been about £5 to £10 for drinks (in Wetherspoon's to privately-owned pubs) and food would tend to be about £15-20 each. However, once I ate with an intern in an Indian restaurant for lunch in Whitechapel where the mains were so cheap I embarrassingly bought two, expecting them to be smaller. One on occasion the interns were treated to a covered tab and fascinating discussions in a pub by friendly Bechtel employees!

For my placement, the choices for nightlife were not at all an important point. But if it were, then one would be spoiled for choice due to the placement being in London, with most of the locations I visited being within about 5 minutes of central London on the underground. Basically, there is whatever you want, as long as you can find it.

Thanks to Bechtel, the interns were given many opportunities to travel to UK HQ to take part in events which offered great insight into the company, the people who run it and the people who work in it. This reason is truly one of the main things that makes this placement stand out. Bechtel looks after its staff lovingly, even its interns. Oftentimes I would go to these events with my interns who were closer to my age - this being the reason I did not spend time outside of work with my coworkers particularly often. Although this question asks about the number of opportunities, it is important to bear in mind how the excellent quality of these opportunities.