Mechanical Engineering intern Review

I enjoyed parts of the placement, due to how short it was it was difficult to be involved in the more in depth technical work that went on, although I did play a part in this nearer the end of the placement. As a result, I was given some of the more straightforward tasks some times which weren't always very interesting.

I was made to feel very welcome by everyone at the company. The team gave me real work to be done by set deadlines, which I found rewarding and gave me a good understanding of the company. I was also invited to social events by the team, other young employees and others within the company.

Both my line manager and supervisor were very accessible and approachable, as well as the more senior engineers and human resources representatives. At the start, I was given a full description and induction to the company, including what they do and what I would be doing. Any questions I had would be promptly answered by either the supervisor or line manager.

I always had work to do, so there was never a time when I would just be sitting waiting for something or not doing anything. Some of the deadlines for the work were not very time pressured, others required some more focussed work. Overall the workload was probably slightly too light.

The responsibility varied depending on the tasks, but as mentioned almost all of the work that I did would have to have been done by more senior engineers anyway. Generally this meant that it was important that I did the work to a high standard, as it wasn't checked afterwards.

This placement taught me a lot about how to work with a customer, as my team had weekly meetings with their customer. I realised it was important to be pragmatic in these situations and understand the differing agendas of each party. This placement also taught me about time management, as I was often left to my own devices with multiple tasks to complete.

The atmosphere in the office was very good natured, with an appropriate level of friendly conversation. Every person I spoke to was also keen to help or just chat depending on the circumstances. There was also a large number of young people because the company has been investing a lot of effort into its early careers program.

The placement recruitment process was very smooth, when I arrived I had all of the resources that I needed or was told what I needed to do to access them. Whilst I stayed in one team for all 10 weeks, I was given the opportunity to visit other sites and understand what the work available there was like.

The company gave me a lot of computer training courses so that I understood how to work there efficiently. We also had training courses so that we could practice our presentation skills, learn to network better and also learn about the company. Experienced engineers attended these events to help us on our development.

During my time at the company, I was put in touch with a lot of the graduates currently on the scheme. They told me about the work they did, and the variety of work on offer sounds very broad. The graduates are also given a good degree of flexibility in terms of where they wanted to work.

The cost of living was very reasonable where I worked, there was a large variety of activities to get involved with and the transport links to access them were very good. Because the company is quite large, there is also a large number of interns and grads to socialise with.