Placement Student Review

Overall I enjoyed the placement. I was given genuine responsibility and felt that I was offered the chance to get involved in a variety of work and learn a lot about the wider business. National Grid also offers a good work life balance and I generally got on well with the team in which I worked.

By the end of the placement I would say I definitely felt a valued member of the team. However I did partially feel that a lot of people expected me to earn the right to be valued and that for the first few months of the placement some of my colleagues only saw me as an intern who was of limited use.

My Line Manager throughout my placement was excellent in supporting me and giving me feedback. They got the balance right between getting me involved in work and also allowing me to work in other projects unaided.

On the whole I was responsibly busy during my average day. However at National Grid I found the emphasis was definitely on me to get involved in work and if you were introverted I can see how placement students/interns might be overlooked and end up with little/dull work to carry out on a daily basis.

Generally I was given real responsibility and carried out work that added value to the business. Although occasionally there were times when I was given administrative work that was repetitive and dumped on me mainly because I was an intern.

I can say with confidence that what I've learnt this year will prove hugely helpful for both my degree and future employment. I've learnt a lot about National Grid and the industry but also about what it’s like to work for a large organization and how to behave appropriately in a business environment.

When I arrived the company was going through a transitional period so lots of redundancies were being made. During this time the atmosphere was fairly poor and many employees weren't enjoying their jobs and were openly critical of the company. However this improved reasonably quickly and for the majority of my placement I would say that the atmosphere has been good and the office a comfortable environment to work.

The placement was fairly well organised. I was able to get involved in a range of work and learn a lot about the business. However in the future there could definitely be more of a structure where there are set projects for placement students to get involved in early on.

There were lots of opportunities to book on to training courses which the company paid for in full. They also gave you the opportunity to book onto exams to start becoming qualified which they also paid for.

The graduate scheme has a really good reputation and is very appealing. The majority of placement students who are offered a place on the scheme return after they've graduated.

The social scene was OK although after speaking to friends working for other companies on placement schemes I think it could be a bit better.

We lived in the Warwick area for the year which was reasonably good value.

The area is fairly quiet compared to university.

There is a football and badminton league outside of work.