Summer Placement - Electrical Engineering - Buildings Review

The main aspects of the role are supporting more senior engineers on any projects which they are working on by completing various tasks. What you do on a day-to-day basis can vary significantly depending on the projects you are working on. Typically, you would have a few meetings to discuss any work which you have been set and then the rest of the time would be filled by completing any work. This can range from reviewing documents, performing calculations on various electrical services, making design suggestions and preparing presentations/reports.

Yes. What I found, and what a lot of the engineers told me when I started, was that a lot of the knowledge which you need for the building services sector is not taught directly in university and therefore the more senior engineers need to teach any new starters, alongside the online Moodle courses where you can learn stuff. I've learnt a lot about different types of engineering drawings, like layouts, schematics and 3D models. I also learnt how to do maximum demand calculations and the design required for electrical risers. Towards the end I also learnt a lot about lighting design. I needed to do quite a lot of problem solving so I think that is something I developed, alongside teamwork which is really important on a lot of projects. I also learnt how to use the software BlueBeam Revu.

Yes. On a lot of projects I felt like I had a genuine say in the design process. Also, when reviewing drawings, typically when I suggested that there should be a change, those changes were then made on the next version which was cool. Especially towards the end of my internship, I was set work to do for projects which I had to complete on my own. Once I had completed those, I would review them with a more senior person and pretty often they would agree with what I had done and then use my work in the actual project which made it feel like I was actually doing something useful for them. Sometimes this felt like quite a lot of responsibility but if I ever had any questions then they were always very fast to help me.

A lot. This was probably the best thing about the internship. Everyone was so nice and literally every time I had a question or was unsure about something, the person I was working with was super fast to help me and explain anything I was confused about. The nicest thing was that everyone seemed very approachable and they made it clear from the beginning that asking questions is a good thing so that made it really easy to ask for help when I needed it.

It was really really nice. Everyone that I met was super welcoming and always made it clear that if I have any issues then they would be very happy to help. The office was a great place and it was a relaxed environment where you could have a chat about non-engineering stuff for a bit if you wanted. Another thing which made the office feel like a comfortable and relaxed space was that there isn't a strict dress code so you could wear something more comfortable than typical smart clothing.

I really enjoyed this internship. Everyone was so welcoming when I joined and throughout my placement they were very supportive - if I ever had any issues with stuff I was confused about or needed help with, they were always happy to help and were good at explaining things in a way which was easy to understand. Also, the work I was doing was interesting as I was able to work on a many different projects and was doing different things in each of those projects so I felt like I was always doing something new which kept the internship really interesting. The fact that I felt like the work I was doing was actually being used also made the internship more fun and rewarding. Finally, the location of the office within central London meant that there were loads of cool places to go for lunch or walk through after work so that was a big positive as well.

Yes

Make sure that when you come to the internship that you ask for work as soon as possible because there were a few days at the beginning where I didn't have much to do because I thought I would be given tasks; but often they wouldn't have something prepared straight away. But when you ask for work in advance, they always find you something to do so in the last 4 weeks I was always busy with doing something which was nice.