Intern Review

I very much enjoyed my placement at Atkins. I found the work interesting, and the team were friendly and approachable. The work I was doing wasn't too complicated, but was still enjoyable for the most part, and the working environment was excellent.

I found I was reasonably useful to my colleagues on my placement in Atkins, there were plenty of jobs that I could do that were useful, but of course for the more complicated jobs, I needed a fair amount of guidance in order to complete them to the best standard possible.

I was given plenty of support from my manager/s at Atkins, if I ever had an issue my manager was very approachable, and they also helped alot with the admin side of the job, sorting out time codes etc. The supervisors for each job were also really useful.

Most days I had plenty to be getting on with, as various members of the team would fire odd jobs at me that needed completion, but aside from doing these jobs, I always had a main job that I could be getting along with day to day, so that I was never bored or out of work.

I wasn't given a huge amount of responsibility at Atkins, but I think this is to be expected, given that I was only on a brief placement, and the jobs with large amounts of responsibility were best left to those with authority. Also, given the checking system (applied to all) there was never a risk of making huge mistakes.

The skills I am most grateful for at Atkins aren't necessarily the engineering skills used, in fact it is the experience of working in a company the size of Atkins, and learning about how a company that size operates, with all the systems (ie check and review, timesheets, job codes etc) that will be useful further on in life. Also the team working aspect, and how each job is broken down between team members.

The atmosphere in the office was fantastic, with everyone being wonderfully friendly, yet still focused on their own tasks. Everyone was very approachable, and could give useful advice on most of the problems that I faced when completing tasks on my placement. My main points of contact were clearly busy alot of the time, but would always make time to help out. The meeting environments at Atkins also felt very easy yet professional.

Once at Atkins, the internship was set up very effectively, everything ran very smoothly on my placement, without any trouble. The only slight organisational issue came before I started my placement, when trying to organise dates for the placement. Also, when taking my passport details, there were some issues in admin that caused a fair amount of hassle, but once I had started my placement the organisation was fantastic, no issues.

Atkins invested a fair amount of time in training me to do each individual job to the highest standard, which I was impressed with, given that I was only a summer student for them. I received fantastic advice and training in many fields, the main being CAD, so that I could help the company with certain tasks.

If I was keen to enter a graduate program after finishing my studies at university, I would definitely be attracted to Atkins graduate scheme. I have other plans for post University, so I was never interested in the Atkins graduate scheme, but I can see that they offer a good system that would be ideal if I wanted to work for them straight out of uni.

Yes, at Atkins there is an excellent social vibe that runs through the department. I can only speak on behalf of my department, but everyone seemed to get along very well, and events were arranged outside of office time. The placement students all got along very well, and knew of each other in the building.

Very expensive city.

I worked in a fantastic city that I've just finished my first year of uni at, and the nightlife is the best around. I was living with other students on my course, on placements, and there were planet of other students I knew still in the city over summer, so the nightlife was excellent. Didn't experience much of it with colleagues.

There were plenty of opportunities to get involved with activities outside of work, Atkins ran lots of trips to surrounding areas for activities such as mountain biking, hiking etc, and also there were plenty of individual sports clubs within atkins, such as tennis and football. Also there were plenty of cycling events and clubs.