Aerodynamics Intern Review

I enjoyed my placement within the Aerodynamics team at MBDA UK back in the summer of 2015. This was my first ever engineering placement and was an excellent way to get a feel of industry work that I could not experience from my studies alone. I was invited back the following year and was happy to take up the offer.

I felt valued by my colleagues because they treated me fairly and with respect, just as if I had a full time job with the company. Whenever I asked someone for help, they put aside the time to show me how to do something or to explain concepts to me, even though they most likely had more important work to attend to.

I had excellent support and guidance from my manager. My manager worked on the desk next to me and would be happy to help me with all the problems I encountered during my work day to day. My manager also told me who else in the department I should go to for advice when there were topics which he could not help with.

I was busy enough on a day to day basis. Most of my time was spent working on the work I had been assigned on my own, or spent talking to my manager about the next stage of the work. I was allowed to attend a few meetings during my placement so occasionally I had to spend some time preparing to present a few slides.

I feel like I had a good amount of responsibility because the work I was doing was for a real project and was a job that needed to be done by someone in the company at some point but at the time no one had got round to doing it. I therefore felt like I wanted to do a good job so that the next person to take over from the work I had done would have an easier job.

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Friendly and respectful

My placement was 10 weeks long and was well organised throughout. I was invited to an assessment day and was told on the day that I would get a phone call the next day to say whether they would offer me a job, which did happen. I was then informed of all forms etc that I had to complete in good time for the start of the placement. The exit process was also smooth.

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Future employment prospects were on my mind when I left MBDA in the summer of 2015. I had been told during an exit feedback session that if I was offered another summer placement and I completed it, then I would probably be offered a place on the graduate scheme for when I finished my degree. I could see myself coming back to the company in the future and so took the offer to return the next summer.

There were only seven summer placement students during my summer placement in 2015. I made friends with the others doing placements like myself and the company organised an interactive day for us where we were able to visit different parts of the company and it ended in a meal out, and so it was an enjoyable sociable day.

I think the cost of living in Filton is relatively low (compared to Bristol city centre areas). There are quite a few large industrial type sites and farmland areas which have had many houses built on them at low cost. There are also a few cheap supermarkets around e.g. Farmfoods. For socialising, most of the people I know from the Filton area go to Bristol city centre which is a nice area but a bit more expensive.

Please see my other review of my placement at MBDA in 2016.

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