Site Engineer Review

I enjoyed my internship as it was a really good insight into the role of a site engineer. I was mainly assisting a graduate with their job and he taught me how to use all the equipment and entrusted me to set out various parts of the structures. During my time we built 2 bridges from foundations up as well as completing parts for another 2 bridges.

I felt valued by 99% of the people I worked with, from contractors onsite to the agent in the office. They took on board my opinions and were happy to give me jobs to do as they knew I would complete them. At the end of my placement they said they would be happy to have me back next summer.

The graduate I was working with gave me a lot of support and help day to day. Other people such as the section engineer and agent were also happy to explain things that I had not covered at university so that I understood fully. The only downside was that due to it being a joint venture there was not a lot of support with the costain systems as I was the only costain employee in my team.

It varied a lot, at the start of the placement it was only me and the graduate so we were very busy every day, sometimes not getting time for a real break. However they then hired 3 more site engineers so it became a lot more manageable and we were able to concentrate on one subsection. This did mean some days there was not as much to do, but usually it was a good amount of work.

Due to the timing of other peoples holidays I was given more responsibility than originally planned. This was good as it allowed me to test whether I could do the role on my own, but also had the down side of dealing with contractors with limited assistance who weren't aware that I was only a student intern.

The skills I learnt such as setting out and surveying are not something I have covered at university yet so it was good to get a headstart for next year. It also helped me to understand the challenges of getting theoretical designs to be a reality and how to overcome these challenges.

I was out onsite most of the day, where generally the atmosphere was good. Sometimes if things were not going well it would get quite stressful, especially towards the end of my time as our work was on the critical path for the whole scheme so it was essential the work was done on time.

The internship was fairly well set up, but there was about 4mths between being told I was successful and the next communication so I feel they could have been better at letting us know what was happening and the timeline. They took into account my request for location and specific role.

I took part in a project wide Safety day but didn't get any specific training for my role other than on the job. I feel they could have invested more so that I could gain more from the role as I could not do certain tasks without the specific training.

I'm looking forward to doing further placements with Costain on different projects as they have been good to work for this year. Colleagues from other companies in the JV commented how Costain was a good company to be working for which reassured me about my choice to work for them.

There wasn't any other placement students but I got on well with my colleagues. However long hours and strict alcohol limits meant social opportunities were limited, especially as everyone would travel home on a friday.

Expensive, however the accommodation allowance from costain made it more manageable as did the Travel allowance.

As previously stated going out in the week was not really an option and at the weekend no one was around.

Work organised some social activities such as 5 a side football but i was not put on the mailing list so usually didn't find out about them on time.