Automotive Engineer Review

Fantastic job - so much variety with the projects given and the people I worked with. I gained valuable experience dealing with customers, suppliers and other engineers.

I was treated as an equal, given total responsibility for my projects but had plenty of support if I needed it.

My manager gave great support if I ever needed it by pointing me in the right direction first rather than doing the thinking for me.

Most of the work involved testing, so some days I found myself waiting for a few results to come back with little else to do, but other days multiple results came in at once and I had to deal with the high pressures of getting results for different people quickly.

I was given the responsibility to run major projects, dealing with customers and suppliers. I had to present and report to the customers. All of the time I was supported by others if I ever needed the help.

The major skills I learnt during this placement were data acquisition, data analysis and presentation skills.

It varied day to day, but on the whole the atmosphere was brilliant. Everyone was really friendly and there was some of friendly banter when appropriate.

Lubrizol have loads of placement students each year, including 4 engineering students, so run a very well organised placement scheme. There is an overlap of a few weeks with the previous student each year so that they can pass on any projects and knowledge that they have gained over their year.

I was sent on several internal (for stuff like health and safety) and two external courses (which was quite expensive!) to aid in my development skills in one of the main computer programmes which I used throughout my placement.

I would love to go back and work for Lubrizol when I graduate! :)

There was a good group of us that lived in/near Derby who socialised 1-2 times/week which was great. We also occasionally had the people from further afield come over for a night out and crash on sofas.

Derby is a pretty cheap place to live.

Derby nightlife was average, but not too far away is Nottingham which has great nightlife!

The social club ran weekly football, badminton and volleyball clubs and lots of other activities that were slightly less frequent. All of which were subsidised!