Civil Engineering Team Review

The amount I enjoyed my time at Atkins definitely depended on the day. Most days I would have a decent amount of work to do (mainly spreadsheets) but other days I would just be sitting around.

I think they tried hard to make me feel valued even though the work I was doing wasn't that hard or important. They treated me nicely and asked me how my weekends were etc.

My line manager wasn't as proactive as he possibly should have been but the manager looking after the part of the project I was working on was very good at guiding me and telling me what I should be asking my line manager (even if he was more than a bit scary). The graduate engineers I was working with definitely supported me a lot throughout the placement and when I asked my line manager anything he would answer promptly.

Heavily depended on the day; when the team were close to a deadline they didn't really have time to explain a task to me so I was often left to do my own research into the project. However, when the team was less busy the graduate engineers would take time to explain tasks to me.

The most responsibility I was given was when I had a task to complete in a matter of hours before the deadline. Apart from that all my tasks were fairly unimportant in the grand scale of the project.

I think the skills I developed the most were people skills and learning about how people work in offices (Skype calls, meetings, etc). In terms of how much engineering I learnt this wasn't as much as I thought it would be (however it did teach me the importance of some of the topics taught at university that are often thought of as a bit useless (like drawing)). Most of the tasks I did were managing small designs with the designers and these tasks could have been carried out be someone with no engineering experience however it did definitely help to have had an engineering background.

Most of the time it was fairly lively with Skype calls happening as well as collaborative work. Some days it was a bit quiet (tended to be when many people were on holiday) but everyone was still really nice.

The paperwork exchanged before the internship started was done in a very organised way with phone calls to make sure everything was correct. The induction (first week) was also really organised and structured and the last part of the internship was also pretty good (when I had enough knowledge to do more for the project) but in between it wasn't always as organised as it could have been.

The managers made it clear that the internship was about them advertising themselves to me, me developing and also them being able to see how much they would want to employ me. I was allowed to attend presentations to help further my knowledge and I did learn some new Excel skills however there wasn't as much engineering training as I thought there would be (like drawing designs myself). I also feel like I would have benefitted from doing site visits or some work as a contractor as well as consulting.

Despite my internship not being completely what I had expected or wanted, I know from looking at the graduate engineers that I was working with that they are treated well, given lots of opportunities to try new things (like working on site for a few months, managing small teams etc). The company is also really good at looking after people (I had health checks throughout the placement to ensure everything was good).

There was another placement student who I had lunch with and spoke to over Skype. She worked in a different part of the office so we rarely worked together but it was nice when we did. The graduate engineers were also really nice.

I was staying at home in London so the largest cost was from travel (£7.70 a day). However I think this is reasonable considering I wasn't paying for accommodation or food and Atkins often provided lunch/snacks depending on the day and how many meetings there were. Going out in London is expensive but it tends to be worth it.

London has excellent Nightlife. Originally I was going to be working in the Epsom branch and the nightlife there isn't great. It's easy enough to get into London from Epsom at night but harder to get back.

There were a range of things available on the Atkins website (like attending the Pride Parade in a group) however this was available to all Atkins employees so I probably wouldn't know anyone if I went to any of them. They didn't really have much for our area of the office (ie with the people I actually know).