Site Engineer Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my year in industry, I worked in a team that were very accommodating and a joy to work with. They made me feel very comfortable and welcome from the very start, which helped me relax into my role. The only thing that stopped me from enjoying the placement completely was the long hours I was working, coming in earlier and leaving later than my contract stated.

In the early weeks of my placement I spent the majority of my time shadowing another site engineer to try and understand the role I would be taking on for the year, so I spent a lot of time listening rather than doing tasks. However, once I gained a satisfactory understanding of the works being carried out, I was then given more and more responsibility until the rest of my team forgot that I was only a placement student.

My line manager set up monthly meetings with myself, so he could catch up with my progress and offer any assistance in what I wanted to do. My team were also constantly available to offer their experience and advice whenever I asked, and even helped me with work I had to complete for university.

From the very first week, I constantly had something I should have been doing and hardly had any time where I was doing nothing. At some points in the placement it did get a little overwhelming and I had to spend extra time after work to ensure I was getting everything done. However, this did encourage me to learn as much as I could, as early as possible so I was able to efficiently carry out all tasks I was given.

As my placement progressed, I was given more and more responsibility from my team, both with paperwork being submitted and also ensuring all works on site is being carried out safely. I believe I was given the appropriate amounts of responsibility as I was able to understand what kind of tasks I would carry out once graduated, but also not too much that I felt under stress.

As my placement was more of a managerial role of subcontractors, where I was reviewing more than I was writing, I feel that it will not assist a great deal of my degree due to it mainly being about the design side of the industry, however it has been crucial for experience when I start as a graduate.

I was lucky with the team I was working in, they were all very accommodating, making me feel comfortable and had a very enjoyable work ethic when in the office. As construction can be a very stressful environment, it was nice to be able to feel comfortable and not dread having to come into work every day.

From very early on in my placement, my team invested a lot of time and effort into my development. They were constantly offering help, always available to talk to with any issues I had and they were always offering their advice and experiences. Whilst also sending me on a wide range of training courses which has given me qualifications that will make me stand out.

The team that I worked in are very interested in when I finish up with University so I am able to come back to the project and continue to be part of the team. This gave me the motivation to keep working hard to impress them further to take me on as a graduate.

There was no social scene or contact with any other placement students within the company. I believe that I was the only engineering placement student on the project for the majority of my time there. There was no organisation of any events or even contacts to be able to talk to other placement students about their placement.