Current Products Team Placement Student Review

Very much! I genuinely enjoyed coming into work every day, there were new challenges to tackle every day. The social side of working here was also very good, with events organised for graduates and placements most weekends.

A great deal, starting off assisting them on projects, moving on to be responsible for projects myself. The harder you work and more responsible you prove you are will of course mean they will respect you more and trust you with more complex and important projects.

The first couple of weeks were relatively casual with mostly work shadowing to see how the company works, the general culture, and to understand your role in the process. My team are always more than happy to help on any issue, they really understand that you aren't here just to work, but more importantly to learn.

The placement is very much what you make of it, if you try hard and perform well you will be given bigger and more important projects to work on. Conversely, if you don't work hard, you will be working on the more simple projects and won't be given the more important roles. In a large company such as this you would think hard work would go unnoticed. It is quite the opposite, with desk reviews and team members watching out for you, the more you put in, the more you will get out.

You are given as much responsibility as you are comfortable with, and to which your skill sets and previous experiences will allow. On my placement I was responsible for conducting engine and component testing, often of my own accord. I was also given responsibility for customer projects where I was given free rein of testing methods.

Applying the engineering skills learned at university has given me even more drive to work harder when I get back to University. I have also learned great engineering problem solving skills from working here, which will be put to good use if I come back here after graduation or any other company I work at I have also improved interpersonal skills from working on different issues with a broad range of people from testing technicians, to project engineering managers.

Professional but relaxed. The people here are always happy to help you out if you need help or information on a project, even if it is not a project they are working on.

Very well, there are 2, 6 month placements while working here. The first is usually a role which you fulfil comfortably and easily to help you settle in to the company. The second position is one that will challenge you a bit more and put you out of your comfort zone, to give you a more rounded engineering experience.

I was put through a practical failure analysis course, which was very useful for my course. In desk reviews with your manager, they are very interested to hear about what you want to do in the future and if they can, will try and accommodate helping you out with this.

The graduate scheme is very appealing, I would very much like to come back if they will have me. The graduate and placements have social events together, so it would also be very sociable outside of work. If it is as good as the placement scheme I think it would be very good for my professional development also.

The social scene was very good, there are quite a few placement students, and there are social events organised for us on weekends with the graduates. It is very good that there are a number of placement students as it means there are a lot of you in the same boat.

Pretty reasonable, the houses are far cheaper than my student accommodation and nearly all of the placements house share with each other so we get to know each other quickly and it reduces the awkwardness of house sharing with someone you don't know.

Both the night out and taxis are fairly cheap, but there are only a few places for a decent night out. You quickly find out which are the good and bad spots though!

Quite a few, there is an organisation here called the Young Proffesionals of Caterpillar who organise events for placements and graduates. From simple nights out all the way up to rally karting!