Engineering and Development Intern Review

My experience as the Engineering and Development intern at Heathrow airport has been truly inspiring. As a newly graduated engineer I have been involved in numerous projects across the airport, which gave me a great insight of all the different areas. Heathrow also gave me the opportunity to get involved in different activities outside the airport. In particular I have enyojed getting involved in STEM activities carried out across different local schools. As a young female engineer, I appreciate Heathrow's efforts as a business to inspire young people.

During my internship at Heathrow airport, I felt valued by my colleagues both within the intern and engineering / development teams. All the projects / tasks I was given involved challenging issues which sometimes carried a large responsibility. As a result, I felt highly valued to be delivering an impactful piece of work.

During the first week of the internship we did a one-week introductory course aimed to prepare us to work within a professional environment. The HR team have been guiding us throughout the intern journey, and have provided support by assigning a mentor and buddy to each intern. We also had regular 1 - to - 1 sessions with the different members in the HR department to discuss our progress in each business unit.

The workload varies depending on many factors. For example, in my case, the delivery stage of my project was quite hectic. There are always plenty of things to do and not one minute to spare!! You can also make good use of your time by shadowing professionals in different areas of the business – colleagues at Heathrow are always willing to help.

The level of responsibility increased throughout the internship, up to the point that in my last placement within the Development team, I was tasked to directly manage 3 real projects. In this placement I was responsible for ensuring the work on site was being delivered SAFELY, to a high QUALITY, and within the agreed TIME and COST limits. In addition, I delivered presentations to the airline community to negotiate & inform them about different aspects of my projects.

My internship at Heathrow has, without doubt, made a big difference in my professional career. As a graduate engineer, it gave me the opportunity to understand better the wide variety of career paths that an engineer can take and discover my strengths and areas of development. I also developed valuable skills on how to work with individuals and teams within a professional environment.

In general, the atmosphere is very friendly. The office is open, which means Senior managers work right next to with their teams and this creates a good collaborative atmosphere and improves communication within the teams. It also makes it easy to increase your network with colleagues in other departments and meet people from other teams.

I believe the placement was well managed and organised by the HR team. The intern group was set a challenge at the beginning of the internship, aiming to discover what does the best airport service in the world looks like. The HR team organised monthly 'all day' sessions to support and guide the intern group with their project.

The intern team received several training sessions to develop our skills to work within a professional environment and explore our strengths and areas of improvement. In addition to this we did two 'away days'. The first one involved working to develop our communication and presentation skills, in preparation for our final intern presentation. The second away day involved exploring ways of working and developing our interpersonal skills.

Currently, there are fantastic future employment prospects at Heathrow as a result of the government's decision to support Heathrow's expansion and third runway. This opens a new world of job opportunities for the next decades. At Heathrow there is a great diversity of job roles for all disciplines and the business provides flexibility to widen your skillset by working in different areas.

There are numerous opportunities to have fun both inside and outside the airport. You can get involved in supporting/organising fund-raising activities such as the midnight marathon and children in need. The business also encourages its colleagues to participate in Duke of Edinburgh challenges. I personally abseiled down T5 and it was a lot of fun! Within the engineering and development department we also like to organise STEM related activities to encourage young people to get involved in Science, technology, engineering and maths related careers.