Vacation Student - Public Health Engineering Review

Designing and specifying public health systems for a real project in central London, including water services, drainage, and fire services. This involved marking up architectural layouts of the building, producing schematics, and spacial coordination with other building services teams, primarily Mechanical, and Electrical Engineers.

Practically, I have been exposed to new software used throughout the building engineering industry, such as Revit. I have also learned about many of the designing techniques and calculations used in building services engineering. Beyond this, I have developed vital interdisciplinary teamworking skills, something many university students miss out on.

Along with a graduate engineer, I was tasked with producing the public health schematics for an ongoing project, that were then issued to the client. This work was both independent, and important, so I certainly felt like I was in a position of responsibility.

I was given 2 mentors, both fairly recent graduates, with whom I could talk freely, and ask questions to about whatever I needed. This was extremely helpful both practically, and in helping me talk through what I wanted to get out of my time there. All other members of the team were also very helpful and welcoming, and more than happy to talk to me about any queries I had.

I approached many people, from a variety of teams during my time at Arup, and all were very happy to take some time out of their day to talk to me about what they did at the company, and any advice they might have. This friendly, helpful attitude, in combination with Arup's exceptional approach to ethical decision making and sustainability, makes for an ideal working environment and atmosphere.

Everyone was very friendly, so I enjoyed meeting other employees and interns. The projects are ongoing, and based in sustainability, which gives a real sense of satisfaction with the work you are doing. So overall, I did thoroughly enjoy my internship, however some tasks given to me in the first couple of weeks were fairly tedious and simple, but this does not reflect the work over the whole 6 weeks.

Yes

You get out what you put in! Arrange meetings with people from other sectors that interest you, ask HR to review your CV, sit in on meetings for projects other than the one you are working on. Be active not passive.