Student Procduct Develpment Technologist Review

Most of the people are easy to get on with and happy to help with any problems. There were times when my workload was low and I sometimes found myself looking for jobs to do. I enjoyed the later months of placement when I was given more responsibility, the first few months felt a bit slow.

It took a while to feel part of the team, it wasn't until the end, looking back at everything I had done, that I felt like a valued team member instead of someone that gets given the jobs no one wants to do. Throughout the placement it felt like students in general were not considered equal and the way people spoke to us or about us was a clear reminder that we were students and not an equal member of the team.

My mentor and manager along with other team members gave me a great deal of help showing me how to do things and helping me understand business processes. I learnt to ask for help when I needed it but always felt like I was bugging someone when I did. I felt in my team it was tricky for my mentor to give me the time required as certain training could take several hours and during times they were very busy. Similarly with my manager always being in meetings it was sometimes difficult to ask for help.

This varied a lot from week to week. Usually I was busy enough to fill my day if I knew what I had to do and could plan it out, but sometimes jobs would be thrown at me to do in a very short time frame and put pressure on me. Other days there was very little to do and I would go around the team asking to do simple tasks to pass the time. This was especially true towards the start, I was mostly helping other team members rather than working on my own projects.

I gained more responsibility as I got further through the year, working on a few projects independently and presenting samples. I would have liked more work to manage as I felt I had a lot of free time that could have been put to better use or working on other peoples projects that I could have looked after, some of which I did.

I learnt a lot about the industry and different processes throughout this year that I wouldn't have learnt at uni, it has helped me looking forward career wise at what I could go into. Putting some of the theory work into practice has helped me understand different processes better, I feel I can relate what I do at uni into real life situations.

The atmosphere was at a good level to work in for me, not silent but not noisy. I didn't always felt at ease however, it always felt like someone was watching because of the open plan. As everyone can hear everything I felt like I was speaking to loud when asking a question or on the phone.

The set up was really good, the first week covered most of the health and safety inductions so we could get started but this was also one of the quietest weeks for me. I think more training would have been useful to how the business works like the process of development and the gate and stage process and also function within the building like how the thermal processing team works. I received no formal training on computer programmes such as SAP or HG which would have been very useful.

I feel there was no deep desire from the company to give us specific training which for certain aspects like computer software would have been very beneficial. Managers reminded us we are here to learn but unless we ask a question or ask for help we are not likely to get any push for specific training.

Several colleagues told me to stay in contact so I felt as though I left with the possibility of returning. After uni I think I would like to go somewhere else to see what else is available and find a company that gives me the responsibility and development I want but I would definitely consider returning to this company.

As there are 5 students at the site I was based at, the students stuck together to start with and socialised well, on occasion outside the business. The department has a social team but other than a Christmas party I don't feel like there was a big social scene compared to what I'm used to at previous jobs.

I lived in the same place in Sheffield as I did the year before during my second year of uni. My rent was around £450 a month and with plenty of student deals the overall cost was very good, I was able to put a lot of my earnings into savings from the year.

In Worksop, where I worked, I never stayed past the end of work as it was very small, there isn't much there. In nearby cities like Sheffield where I was there was a brilliant nightlife through the whole week and still plenty of places to go on a budget at the weekend.

There were very few activities outside the workplace. The main events being the Christmas party and the students leaving night. Other than this it is down to the social team, which was mostly made of students, to organise events but as people were very reluctant to attend there were very few times this happened and again was mostly the students who organised something amongst themselves.