Manufacturing Undergradute Placement Review

I have enjoyed gaining valuable industry experience whilst on my placement and have also been able to apply certain aspects of my degree to the role. However, as the role isn't specifically linked to my area of study, a lot of the knowledge gained at university isn't relevant. Overall, the skills gained on my placement will be valuable in future careers. At times I am also not as busy as I would perhaps like to or would have expected to be.

My colleagues are always keen to get me involved with tasks and projects that they are involved with and it is clear from feedback that they value my input. I have also been trusted with the responsibility to head up my own projects from time to time, so I feel that my colleagues respect my ability to complete the work well.

If I am ever in any doubt about something or feel like I need to ask questions then there are plenty of people who are there to listen and provide support. In terms of guidance, I am at times left to work on my own initiative and sometimes when the project information is quite vague it can be hard to really get going with the task.

Some of the projects I have been involved with have only provided enough work the last a couple of days so there have been times when I am waiting for more things to be tasked with. However, during these times I was able to shadow other colleagues to see the work that they were involved with.

In terms of the projects and tasks that I have been given, then the responsibility has been fairly high. I have often been the only person working on the project so have been able to make decisions for myself and the outcome of the tasks has entirely been down to me.

The placement area is fairly general with it being just a 'Manufacturing Placement' so I have not learnt any specific skills or engineering material that will come up in my degree course content. However, with regards to project management and team work skills, I have seen how large scale projects are carried out in a multinational company so will be able to apply this knowledge to future university group tasks.

Everyone in the office is friendly, chatty and very knowledgeable so they have helped me to settle in to the office and production environment quite quickly. At busy times things can get quite hectic and people may not have time to provide support or answer questions but this is to be expected from a large scale production environment.

At times it can feel like there is not much specific work planned for me on a day to day basis so I am forced to get involved with other people's projects and I am given smaller, more on the spot jobs to keep me busy. But I have been able to spend time in other departments to find out a bit more about how the overall company works.

The training and development programmes at EGGER are very good. They have a wide range on different 'KOMPAKT' courses which offer an in depth insight into the different departments in the company (e.g. finance, logistics, production, sales and marketing...) in the form of a day long training course. These programmes are run with the aim of teaching staff about how different departments operate so that hopefully interdepartmental communication and projects can run more smoothly in future.

In regards to my placement, I don't think it is the area of work that I wish to have a future career in, so probably would not apply for the graduate role in this area. However, the company as a whole to work for seem to invest a lot in developing their staff, with plenty of managerial based training courses available so would be a good company to work for

There were not that many placements students employed by the company and each one was in a different department so we rarely saw each other.

I lived in Newcastle where the cost of living is very low and the city is a great place to live in terms of nightlife. The only downside is the cost of commuting in to work every day as it was a 40 odd mile round trip. The area the plant is based in is a pretty affluent area so the cost of rent and socialising is quite high in comparison.

Never been out in the area that the plant is based but can't imagine there's a lot going on. Newcastle isn't too far away though which more than makes up for it.

There's a sports and social club with regular notices about different activities such as a day at the races, theatre trips, etc.