Placement Student Review

The range of different activities you undertake is great, you get to work on things that you wouldn't get to see anywhere else in the UK. Combined with a mostly friendly workplace and a large number of young graduates and students it is an excellent placement.

As part of a relatively small project team with its own office space I felt as an important and valued member of the team. I have made some friends out of my colleagues which I am sure I will keep for many years.

You will have a line manager responsible for your general management as well as a project manager for each project you work on. I felt my managers were all very approachable and was always given some advice when I asked for it. I did however change line managers about half way through my placement as my old manager left the organisation. This meant I was given a temporary line manager with not much indication of how long they would stay my line manager (They ended up been my line manager for the rest of my placement).

I mostly managed my own time working on tasks for my main project, going to colleagues for help when needed. Flexi-time is a major perk of the company and enables you to help schedule your working to allow for a good work/life balance. There were times when off slower paced work, for instance the start of the new financial year slowed down the progress of some of our tasks significantly.

As I have said above, I had control over most of my day to day tasks. This responsibility means that I feel I have greatly boosted my ability to manage my own time and work to deadlines, more so than I did while working on my degree.

The placement was an excellent opportunity to work with equipment, and at places, I would never get the chance to use or see at university. I have gained some valuable practical skills as well as report writing skills I will use for the rest of my professional life.

I was in an office space split into three smaller conjoined offices, housing about 9 people in total. The atmosphere in our office was extremely friendly, with occasionally trips out to lunch or breakfast when weekend working. There was cake, and coffee and more cake.

The HR process of recruitment was fairly slow, for example I was told at my interview they would reach a decision in several days. I did not get an offer until three weeks later, at which point I was already considering offers from other workplaces. Information passed from HR to my line managers seemed often to be slow and resulted in some confusing information.

When starting there is a week of training now setup for new starters within my group (however this will vary between groups), there is also a range of induction course every new starter will have to complete. Throughout the year within my group there were are wide range of informative briefs on various technology areas and on various peoples different experiences (However again this will vary from group to group).

There are sponsorships available for placement students to fund them through their degrees, and result in a guaranteed interview in the student’s final year. However this system did change through the last half of my placement year and very little information was given out by HR.

There is a new starters group, STEPS (Scheme for Technical Events and Professional Support), this group has committee members based at each site. These members organised weekly pub quiz trips, as well as educational and social activates. A small selection are listed below: -Museum Lates -Zoo Lates -Thorpe Park Fright Night -National Fireworks Championships -Police Dog Demonstration -Shooting Range -Experiences in Theatre -Presentation on the History of the Fort -New Starters Conference held in Bovington Tank Museum

As my placement was in Sevenoaks, I lived in Orpington. The cost of living is high and comparable to London prices, unfortunately there is no adjustment for this between sites. There is however a free bus route to the Fort from Orpington station that will pick up from any bus stop on the route and also from Knockholt station.

Unfortunately the pubs in the Orpington/Bromley area all close fairly early at elevenish on week nights and twelvish at weekends. However it is only a twenty minute train journey to London Bridge or Covent Garden. Be wary of the night bus though, the experience of travelling three hours to get home is a "unique" one, as is arriving home at 0630 when you left the bar at 0200....

As I have said above the STEPS community is a friendly one and there are multiple oppurtunities to socialise with them.