Solutions Centre Analyst at Lubrizol

Working at Lubrizol has been fantastic for my confidence and for gaining technical knowledge. Lubrizol was my first professional job in a corporate environment and it's great a great insight into what a relatively large company is truly like, I can't imagine working for a more friendly company like Lubrizol.

Locally within IS (information solutions) I've felt greatly valued by all IS colleagues on site, they have provided me with support when I asked for it and sometimes when I haven't. On a global scale there was a little discord with the global solutions centre, often feeling that we were in our regions and there wasn't much of a team attitude.

For my placement the management changed half way through my placement as my current manager came back from maternity leave. Both the managers were awesome, very supportive when needed and asked for it but both with different management styles. the support I've received from my project supervisors has been amazing, couldn't have asked for better!

In Lubrizol IS there is always something to do, hence the 10 mark for this question. there has never been a day when i've been sitting there with nothing to work on, espically is you're willing to ask for work, the members of staff are more than willing to help when they can (might help their work load as well).

In terms of access I was given an enormous about of responsibility, have full read and write access to the network is a big deal with only around 20 people having that responsibility, Lubrizol invest a lot of time with students to ensure that they know what they are doing with the access and responsibility.

in terms of soft skills I've learned so much about myself and gain so much confidence in my ability, I will use this for when I go back for my final year of my degree. The technical skills won't be too helpful for my Computer Science degree but for later in life it will provide me with a head start over other graduates.

In the department the atmosphere is great, everyone is very keen to help when asked and there is very much an 'All in' attitude in the department. Everyone is very friendly and there is a lot of office 'banter' making students feel very comfortable at an early stage of their placement.

Towards the middle of the placement the work became more organised, at the start of the placement there wasn't much structure in terms of project work and solutions centre work. But this is understandable as this was the first year in which there has been a project/solutions centre work split and it was a learning curve for Lubrizol IS, the new students now have a much more structured work balance.

I think Lubrizol as a whole they were fantastic for encouraging personal training and development, they offered a lot of opportunities and allowed me to use the working day to learn certain skills/programming languages and also allowed students to take part in certain full time employee benefits such as the amazing pension scheme. However, there were a few courses that I was interested in and like but students were allowed on them only full time employees, hence the mark given.

In IS I think it is known that they don't hire too often, there isn't many positions available in the UK and Europe, but they do hire a number of people in the states. Lubrizol at the moment don't offer many graduate schemes in the UK they recently added two and these are the first two for Lubrizol UK. there isn't currently a graduate scheme in IS

As there are a large number of placement students there is a good student environment (380 total staff, and around 33 placement students 3 apprentices). Many of the students live together over their placement year and they go out regularly in Derby and Nottingham. Many of the students also take part in a lot of the activities proposed by the sports and social committee and some students suggest and organised events themselves.

Derby is known for being quite cheap for everything, I lived at home in Nottingham during my palcement but many of the other students shared housing with each other and Lubrizol put forward suggestions for cheap accommodation close to the centre of Derby and close to work. They allow time for you to look round houses on the familiarization day.

Derby for nightlife is okay, there's a few clubs and a load of bars to choose from. It's not the cheapest of nights out but still enjoyable. Many of the students traveled to Nottingham for nights out occasionally as they are better nights out and cheaper, as Nottingham is much more a student city.

Loads of opportunities!! Many of the students also take part in a lot of the activities proposed by the sports and social committee and some students suggest and organised events themselves. there were also suggestions of going to bars int he evening by the students in fb group chats .