Safety Performace and Improvement Placement Review

Looking back on the whole year I can say I did enjoy my placement experience as a whole. When you start a placement you think it will be all about what work you will be doing but actually the people around you really influence your experience. I loved the people I was working with. There were also many other placement students so there were chances to get involved outside of work socially. My placement position provided me with varying tasks. There were the routine tasks that needed to be completed every month and also a chance for AdHoc work.

As I got on so well with my colleagues I felt like I was very valued. The work we did was also very important work that needed to be completed. We weren't given silly jobs to pass the time or anything. I would like to think that the contributions I have made will be useful to the company for some time after I have left.

My Line manager supported me a lot, however one of my colleagues on the team was always there to help us with any issues or tasks related to the work that we were doing. She was able to give us advise and point us in the right direction. There were also times were she was needed to bail us out of a big mess- not sure what we would have done without the great support

In the beginning I was very busy as I was learning how to do a lot of the routine work. Once I became fast at completing the routine tasks I had some empty time where there wasn't that much for me to do once I completed those tasks. I wasn't experienced enough by that point to take on AdHoc work. However once my experience grew the work load also grew and by the end of the year I was super busy- which was great!

From the start it was known to us that we had to learn how to do the work fast as no one else would be doing it for us and it needed to be done! Therefore I felt like a lot of responsibility was put on us. Also the two previous placement students were the ones to teach how to do everything in 2 weeks. After that time they were gone and then we were the only people in NATS who knew the ins and outs of the work!

Although the skills I learnt do not directly relate to my degree course I feel that I have hugely developed my Organisational awareness and Professionalism. I would have had no idea about these two things had I not completed this placement year- you just don't learn that kinda stuff whilst you're at university. One thing I did really improve on was how to actually use Excel with all the formulas, macros and VBA (coding)

The atmosphere was really nice in the office. It was quiet enough to get work done but also there was a certain level of noise so that you could freely talk to other people without feeling like you are disturbing everyone. Fridays are dress down Fridays so you can were more casual clothes and the atmosphere is more relaxed on a Friday afternoon.

Within my little team it was all quite seamless. But NATS is a very large business and there were more than a dozen placement students/grads/apprentices ect so sometimes things became unorganised. For example there were meetings for all the placement students to attend from around the business where you received an email inviting you. However sometimes they missed people off the invitation lists!

I feel like they did invest in me as they always let me take online courses to improve myself. However there were some external courses I would have liked to have done such as presentation skills and also an environmental awareness course but they were unavailable- not their fault.

The company is so large that I feel it would be difficult not to find a place where you would fit in and enjoy. They have lots of grad schemes and once you're an employee you can progress and get promotions and change jobs to high level of pay.

There was a good social scene but as half of us lived in Southampton and the other half in Portsmouth (with work 30 minutes drive in the middle) If the socials were not in your city it was too much trouble to go. But if you live with other placement students then that's always good fun!

My town house was in the city centre of Southampton and it was 399 per person for four people to share. A lot cheaper than what I was used to in Guildford where it was 570 a month!! The clubs and bars were all varying prices so you could go out and spend all your wages or just 15 pounds if that all you could afford.

Southampton has a lot going for it with regards to night life. Theres countless bars and clubs- take you pick! Oceana is the largest club but then there is a collection of different bars and clubs such as pop world (cheese), Junk, 90's, Chester's and I cant remember the names of the others!

I went to the gym every morning which was good as you missed all the traffic coming into work. There are gym classes like circuit training at the Swanwick centre and people went running at lunch times. After work there was a netball club and a football club. In Southampton there is lots to do. I went to Portuguese classes at Southampton Uni and my house mate did martial arts. There's also Spanish lessons at work at lunch times