Summer Intern Review

My placement with Atkins was astoundingly insightful. Atkins, being a well-established and technically competent engineering firm, presented an opportunity for me to gain specialised technical knowledge while working on a good diversity of projects. I was glad to be able to learn new skills including FE modelling, structural verification, and even some note-taking.

The culture within the greater company had been an inclusive one. On my first day at the company, I was introduced to the colleagues and they've patiently nurtured me as I went through different projects during the internship ever since. They were friendly, sociable and supportive.

The management did a good job of making sure that the interns were well settled with periodic check-ins. However, as with any internship, the level of engagement depended on the level of proactivity one is able to commit to. Hence, I mostly had to go to the right people to get the right support. But, the supervisors were a good place to start.

At the beginning of the internship, there wasn't much to do as major projects were ramping down. But towards the second half of my internship and as more work came in, I had a good level of engagement. The company also focused on providing a balanced life. I was encouraged to join the local badminton club with my colleagues and socials to celebrate certain occasions.

I was given a good level of trust when it came to handling projects. For a few projects, they provided me with the freedom to approach technical tasks that had a reasonable difficulty level for an intern with an adequate amount of supervision. I felt engaged with the projects as they trusted me to handle it from the grounds up and provided me with support when necessary.

Atkins, being an established engineering practice, has garnered a treasure trove of technical knowledge to be shared. They have made such information easily accessible to all employees, including training on specialised applications of Eurocodes, knowledge sharing between employees, best-practice guides, and much more. These could take the form of a physical seminar, a webinar, electronic resources and online forums.

The office was on par with any other ordinary office. People were focused when they needed to be (which is most of the time), but were sociable whenever they were on their breaks. One noteworthy aspect of the office was that the health and safety culture was well established and they deserve some credit for their commitment to creating a safe working place.

There was no structured program for work placement students to go through beyond the orientation courses every employee was required to take at the beginning. They had a checklist that had to be ticked through to ensure that the employee was familiar with all the necessary information to operate within the company, but that was it. To their credit, they did try hard to find work with the best learning opportunities for their interns.

The company gave access to a wide variety of learning resources to me. They encouraged me to attend webinars, local industrial events and allowed me to travel for projects when the learning opportunity arose.

I will definitely look forward to joining Atkins again in the future. The company provides a good level of benefits to all their employees and commits to providing them with a career with a huge potential for professional development. At this stage, I'm appealed to be based in an office with an ICE rep dedicated to supporting graduate engineers through the process of getting their internship.

I was one of two placement students in the office, so we didn't have much of a social scene going on. However, this was made up by the general colleagues there. I was never isolated.

The cost of living in Swindon is decent enough for you to retain a majority of your placement salary here. I could retain up to 50% of my salary after living costs and rent (assuming that you commit to saving of course).

There are bars around the area where one could have a decent nightlife. I don't really travel around at night so I don't have much information to provide.

Swindon is a rather quiet town, so I didn't expect much activities to take place outside of work. I do get frequent opportunities to go on socials with my colleagues, attend badminton club sessions and travel to nearby cities (since Swindon is strategically placed on the Great Western Main Line).