Mechanical Engineering Intern Review

I enjoyed working with the team but the work wasn't enjoyable or challenging which was disappointing. Wasn't given engineering tasks was given more admin tasks to reduce other colleagues workload. The job also didn't deliver on the best bits of the job description which led me to accept the placement which was another thing which has left me feeling disappointed.

I felt valued as a team member and felt that I was appreciated. The team were all very friendly and I have a good relationship with them all. I have enjoyed being a part of their team. I don't feel however that they valued my ability and I wasn't given much chance to impress by completing challenging tasks, just by completing work quicker than expected.

I was given a CEng mentor to help me to complete my MPDS with the imeche, I found this useful and he helped me to get a few days experiences in other departments within the business which were much more related to my future career interests. I was also assigned a supervisor in my area but they struggled to delegate me applicable tasks.

On occasions there would be a sudden boom where I would get lots of tasks with short deadlines but for the majority I was left to try and fill my own time by finding other work, these tasks were often hard to find and when I did they were never particularly challenging or interesting.

I was given some responsibilities but I would not say that I had much responsibility. I definitely think interns should be given more responsibility than I had. I think more department specific training at the start would allow you to become more competent more quickly to enable you to fulfill responsibilities more successfully.

There are very few tasks that I have been given this year which I couldn't have done after year 11 or 6th form. I haven't used my university studies at all which has been very disappointing. The work I have done will not be much use to me for my future studies either unfortunately. My MPDS mentor within the business and department manager were supportive of me working in another department to gain more relevant experience which I appreciated however my line manager wasn't happy with this and prevented them from allowing me to do this which was a great shame.

The team were generally friendly and I've gotten on really well with them and had some good team meals out, the team get on well. From a working point of view though the atmosphere isn't very ambitious or motivational, its more a 'is it Friday yet' than a 'lets do this!' feel.

It took until day 4 of the internship for all interns laptops to be set up allowing us to start making a useful contribution, this seemed a poor start. My department didn't really know what work they were going to give me specifically but I think didn't want to turn down the chance for a worker not on their project budget. I was given a supervisor within my team who came from a background in my area of interest, however it soon became apparent that they weren't very good at delegating work and as a result I kept getting work from other team members doing work that gave me very little useful experience which is a main reason for a year in industry. My manager became aware of this and tried to arrange for me to be given more related work from another department but the entry level talent team blocked it on the grounds I'd signed a contract to that department, this lack of flexibility was very disappointing.

We completed 3 intern development training days which focused on soft skill development, the last of these was ok, however the first two were exceptionally well run courses that really impressed me and I'd highly recommend. We also received a days training on the companies product in partnership with the local university, however this wasn't until several months into the placement which seemed rather strange.

Siemens as a hole is a huge company which I would be open to returning to after my degree, however the lack of clarity in the application process and the lack of flexibility and common sense I have experienced in my internship would mean that if I were to return to Siemens it would be within a different area.

Quite a few interns lived together in a few houses, there was an intern team in the local 6 a side league and the interns got together fairly often, I think it was a really good group and have enjoyed getting to know them all. The business was poor in getting the interns to know each other, I don't think most people had met until the 4th month so I'd recommend they organize the interns to meet far sooner in future years. They did help to put us in touch with each other to organise housing atleast.

Lincolns a fairly cheap area to live.

As a city with a university the nightlife is quite good.

We were given sporadic volunteering opportunities throughout the year, these varied but were enjoyable to participate in and counted towards your work hours.