Industrial placement student Review

I really enjoyed my placement year. I gained a lot of valuable experience and was able to apply my knowledge from my first few years of uni to real life civil engineering design. I feel like my placement helped me greatly with my third year of uni as I was able to think in a more applicable way.

I felt very valued by my colleagues. I was given the freedom to produce work and make my own engineering judgement on a variety of packages of work. I felt very appreciated when I carried out a task for a colleague, I would never as if my work wasn't valued. I felt like I became one of the team and I was welcomed greatly.

I was given a lot of support from my line manager and supervisor. Whenever I had a question or was unsure about the approach to take with a certain problem, they were always more than happy to teach and guide me in the right direction. I learnt a lot from my supervisors and I am very grateful.

I was busy but also given the freedom to work at a comfortable pace. If I ever felt as if I was given too much work then I would let my manager know and they would help me to manage the work. I felt like the balance of work was good as I always had sufficient time to think comprehensively about the given task.

I was given a lot of responsibility on my placement. I was given tasks to carry out which my seniors were also doing as well. This made me more engaged and determined to produce the best quality work I could do. Once I was put in charge of a piece of work it was my responsibility to deliver that work, this made me feel very valued.

The skills I learnt on my placement definitely helped me in my uni work as I was able to produce work in a more professional manner and I was able to include things I had learnt on placement which really gave me an advantage for specific design coursework. The skills will definitely help me when I get a graduate job as I already have worked in the industry and understand the general practices.

The atmosphere in the office was very positive. I feel like there wasn't any hostility and everyone seemed to get along very well. In a professional sense, the atmosphere was productive, with everyone knowing what they needed to do. I felt like I was ever pressured into working faster, the general mentality was to get your work done, it was your responsibility to do that and that worked really well.

I feel like my placement was very well organised and set up. I was given a lot of work to do and learnt a lot from my colleagues. The work was varied and I learnt many skills including more planning and project management roles that I hadn't learnt a uni before.

The company ensured I had all the relevant training to carry out the required job I was to undertake. As I was only doing a year placement, in some cases I didn't carry out the same training as my colleagues as it covered many years for specific projects. However, if I was there for longer they would have ensured I had carried out this training.

The future employment prospects are very appealing to me. There is a lot of progression at the company and there are many different routes to go down, from design to project management to digital engineering. The company has a very good structure and it entices me to achieve highly within the company. I have now got a job with the company lined up and working for a year for the company really motivated me to work for them.

All of the placement students and apprentices got along very well as we were all around the same age.

The cost of living was not very expensive. Normal prices for the midlands, however, some places in Birmingham were expensive but we tended to avoid these.

There were many times when the office would go out for drinks on a friday. We would go to areas where many professionals seemed to end up after work. For this reason the nightlife was packed.

There were a few opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work but these were organised scarcely. I believe there could be some improvement to this.