Team Member Review

I enjoyed the placement immensely. I was immediately trained up for lab work involving research and development relevant to important customer deliverable reports. I was given responsibility over my own project at one point, and generally had a large degree of freedom over what work I could get involved in with the offer of any training required being company paid.

The people I worked with were friendly and willing to take time to help get me up to speed when I first started. Colleagues would often talk about their own work and ask about mine, in a sharing discussion culture that encouraged getting other peoples opinions and made your opinion and ideas valuable. Occasional pub lunches also enforces the feeling of being valued by colleagues in a non work manner.

My manager has an open door policy and would be willing to listen whenever I had an issue, or generally needed advice. He helped introduce me to other teams and departments when my work got light and had a good grasp on what work I was doing to make sure I was happy and enjoying my current work. Also, other managers in my department were just as helpful and would be willing to put in just as much effort to help despite not being your manager if they were asked.

Work started light at the beginning of the placement mostly due to the specialised subjects I was dealing with requiring some back knowledge before being able to perform research. This mostly led to lots of lab work to get familiar with equipment which I enjoyed. After settling in most of the time I would be sharing my time each day between two projects which is encouraged to keep ideas fresh, involving either research, testing or report writing test results. There is voluntary opportunities for field work which usually involves a very busy week although I attempted to get on as many of these as possible as I enjoyed them.

I was given plenty of responsibility, I did not feel as though I was treated differently to any other team member when on a project. During a field test I was given the responsibility to track something which was very important for the trial and would void the results if tracked incorrectly. For a different group I was given a guideline to achieve something and then given total control over the project including creating a work plan, organising and presenting at meetings as well as delegating work I required others to do for me.

I spent more time in the lab in the first two months of my placement then the last two years at university. I have vastly increased my knowledge of lab equipment as well as general lab etiquette such as note taking and how to get setups that involve large amounts of equipment sorted. This alone is an invaluable life lesson for anyone considering engineering. I have also developed my report writing, time management, people management, organisation and presentation skills, as well as extensive knowledge in a specialised field of work. All of these are highly sought after skills on a CV and I am able to name multiple instances for each showing off my developed skill.

My office consisted of 4 people (including me) with our own desks, and the setup of the room made it easy to start conversation. Not only was general chat common within our office but friendly conversation, work related or otherwise, was common in hallways and sometimes people would come into our office for half an hour just to chat about goings on or football or recent news.

Initial week of the placement started slow as there was mandatory online training (read some slides, do a quiz, next topic) before being able to do actual work but due to how easy it was to get work and the freedom of choice I was given allowed me to quickly get involved in things that interested me, with my manager helping me get introduced to people I may be interested working with.

I received a UK recognised certificate in soldering, I received lots of training to be able to partake in trials (equipment operating, manual handling, fire safety), I was given the opportunity to receive first aid training as well as being told I could have training in anything required to allow me to work on a project I wanted to get involved in, such as MATLAB, CAD, circuit design. My manager actively encouraged partaking in training and would often ask if I had found something that interested me, as well as sending group emails when new training became available.

Near the end of my placement I was given the opportunity to have an interview to get a sponsorship for my final year leading into a guaranteed job after graduation (there was also sponsorship available for two years remaining for masters students). This involved presenting to my manager and some peers what work I had performed over the year and what value I had demonstrated. I received an offer and will be getting both sponsored for my final year as well as a job after graduation.

There was a STEPS group which brought new starters (including placement students) together and they would organise events ranging from pub quizzes to sporting activities and a STEPS two day conference (paid) which included some talks from different departments and a hotel night with a fancy awards meal. Also made a group of friends from people I got the work bus with and we organised our own things outside of work such as seeing movies, beer festival, games night, pub quiz etc.

Cost of living and socialising is higher than you would pay in most places as the area is close enough to London that the prices are raised accordingly. Not quite as expensive as places further in such as central. £4 pints at pub roughly, cinema tickets similar to rest of UK, public transport is super cheap in surrounding area and London due to oyster cards.

Not much nightlife in surrounding area excluding pubs but because of the proximity to London, If you wanted a night out you were a 18 min train ride to London bridge from which you could get on the tube to any club in London. I organised a multiple trips into London with friends from work and was easy to sort.

I made friends with people from work and we organised our own activities mostly which we preferred although STEPS and general work does were also organised during my placement and of the ones that I went to I enjoyed all of them so would highly recommend getting involved. STEPS conference highly recommend, great night.