Industrial Placement Student Review

by Atkins

This review was submitted over 4 years ago, so some of the information it contains may no longer be relevant.

Rating

4.1/5
  • The Role
    4.3
  • The Company
    4.2
  • The Culture
    3.9

    The Role

  • 1. To what extent did you enjoy your work placement or internship?
  • I really enjoyed it, and would definitely recommend people apply to Atkins. The people I work with are excellent, and I was given interesting work to complete that I felt was of importance. This has been my second placement in engineering, and I have enjoyed my time at Atkins far more than my previous job.

    5/5

  • 2. To what extent did you feel valued by your colleagues?
  • I felt very valued by my colleagues. The atmosphere in the working environment is great, and I was given many opportunities to work with a range of people from around the office. The social scene is also very good at Atkins and many evenings out were available, particularly aimed at graduates and placement students.

    5/5

  • 3. To what extent were you given support and guidance by management/your supervisor(s)?
  • The support and guidance was also pretty good. I naturally don’t really enjoy asking for help so didn't often bother my manager with small requests or questions, so I didn't interact as much as I potentially could have. However, my supervisor was continually looking out for opportunities for me, and would share any relevant information with regards to personal development with me, and would never turn down a meeting request if I needed one.

    4/5

  • 4. How busy were you on a daily basis?
  • The workload varied quite a bit, and is quite cyclical in nature. When you’re on a project, it can be very high intensity as you meet deadlines and get productive work done, but in between projects, there can be quite a lot of time not doing a lot. However, there is always training available to keep you busy, or general research to be done for future projects.

    4/5

  • 5. How much responsibility were you given during your placement?
  • I was quite surprised by how much responsibility I was given. At my previous placement, I was doing very low level work and was mostly involved with small tasks for various people. For my first project at this placement I was given the chance to present my work to clients from Japan, and have since been the main author of a 50 page report that is being paid for by the client.

    4/5

  • 6. To what extent did/will the skills you developed, and training you received, assist you in your degree studies and beyond?
  • I've been doing quite a lot of Microsoft Word/Excel VBA related work, and although I was already very experienced in this prior to the placement, I have still improved significantly and these skills will always be relevant to degree studies and future work. I'm also going to be working a lot more on technical software after my current project ends, and hope to become experienced in AutoCAD and MathCAD and other software before my placement ends.

    4/5

    The Company

  • 7. What was the general atmosphere in your office?
  • The atmosphere was great in the office. People are always willing to help you with questions or queries, and will always be ready to have a chat. In particular, I was really good friends with everyone in my six person office bay, and we had a weekly snack event where people would take turns to bake some treats, and we even had bay socials every month or so.

    5/5

  • 8. How well organised was the overall work placement or internship set up?
  • The work placement was pretty smooth. Due to it being a nuclear placement, there was quite a lot of hoops to jump through with regard to getting security clearance, and I did have quite a few problems with this, for example being sent the incorrect forms to complete initially, and it taking a week after I arrived at work to get security cleared to enter the building by myself.

    4/5

  • 9. In terms of personal training and development, to what extent did the company or firm invest in you?
  • If the training is related to your work, the company really encourages you to get involved with the many training opportunities available, and in the first month, about half of it is spent in training. There is also the opportunity to travel for training, and I had some recent training at a hotel for two days which was really useful and good fun. However, it can be quite tricky to get approved for training, and I would normally have to chase admin up to get onto the course in time.

    4/5

  • 10. What were the perks on your work placement?
  • Flexi Time

    Subsidised Canteen

    Sports and Social Club

    Company Parties/Events

    4/5

  • 11. How appealing are future employment prospects within the organisation?
  • I’m hoping to come back to work here after my placement has ended, so obviously I rate the future prospects here very highly. There seems to be quite a good system in place for progressing the in the company, and as long as you’re good at what you do, there are many opportunities for reviews and feedback (formal ones twice a year) to review your progress and consider new prospects.

    5/5

    The Culture

  • 12. Was there a good social scene amongst any fellow placement students/colleagues?
  • There was a great social scene, and many graduate/placement students where I worked. We had two social secretaries, so many work social events were set up, normally two every three weeks. Informal events between various groups in the office were also going on every week. I’d say my social life was split 50/50 between colleagues and friends from elsewhere.

    5/5

  • 13. What was the cost of living and socialising in the area you worked in?
  • I don’t know much about living in other areas, so for me Bristol is quite reasonable, and nights out are significantly cheaper than London for example. The older graduates quite enjoy going to more expensive bars and restaurants, which can be a bit heavy on the cost of socialising, but the placement students would often do very cheap events and nights out.

    4/5

  • 14. What was the Nightlife like in the area you worked?
  • Although we worked in Aztec West, the nightlife was almost exclusively located at Bristol. Bristol has a great nightlife with all the students that live there, and good nights out are not hard to come by. It was a bit tricky to balance work and the nightlife mid week, as students often go out on Mondays to Thursdays, which can be a bit hard to manage with the early wake ups for work.

    4/5

  • 15. Were there many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work?
  • The sports and social club organised quite a fair few events and activities outside of work, and I was a member throughout my time at the placement. However, not many of these appealed to me, and very few of the placement students got involved with them. I know lots of the older graduates and employees enjoyed these opportunities though, but I don’t think they were particularly aimed at the placement students.

    3/5

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Details

Placement (10 Months+)

Information Technology, Mechanical Engineering

South West

October 2015


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