Mechanical Placement Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Hoare Lea so much so that I'm not sure I actually want to leave! There was a good variety of work and I got the opportunity to go on lots of site visits as well as doing my day to day work in the office.

I felt very valued by my colleagues, once I’d been working with Hoare Lea for a few weeks and had an idea of what the work was about I felt able to contribute to group discussions on a range of topics, and felt that my contributions were noted and acted upon.

There was a huge range of support and guidance given to me, from talking to other graduate engineers about their experiences, so Executive Engineers giving me help with the work that they had tasked me to complete. The Partners of the office both went out of their way to make sure I was settled and copying with office life.

I found that typically I was as busy as the rest of the team, some days were lighter than others due to the nature of the work, however there were always tasks for me to do and I was often very busy working on my own sections of much larger projects.

I was given the same level of responsibility as any other new employee, while initially my work was given to me in small sections, with regular checks to see how I was getting on, very quickly I was given larger, broader assignments and allowed to work on them in my own style, only having checks if I requested help or at the end of the assignment.

I have learnt a lot during my time at Hoare Lea, before starting my internship I had very little idea what building services was or what engineers did. Now however I feel I have relative broad knowledge of what happens day to day within the office and feel confident in tackling most aspects of projects that are given to me without assistance.

The office itself is very friendly and the office layout means that it is easy to both engage in conversation with people around you, or alternatively concentrate on your own work. Due to the nature of the work there are often discussions going on about different projects and anyone is free to join in and add their own views.

I feel my internship was very well organised, it felt more like a permanent position than a temporary internship. After the first two weeks or so when I was settling in it felt natural coming in to work and picking up from where I had left off the previous day.

I had the opportunity to take place in CPD’s at least once a week (or more often if they were run more often). On top of which several different Executive Engineers took the time to sit down with me and explain all the different methods behind the work I was carrying out. This primarily happened at the beginning of my internship when I was coming up against lots of new material but continued throughout the duration.

The prospects are extremely appealing, they have offered me a position in any of their offices around the country. I would love to come back and work for Hoare Lea as I feel really comfortable with the rest of the guys in the office and with the firms approach to work and projects.

Yes definitely, there were no other placement students at the office during my time, however the graduate engineers regularly met up, either for a pint at the end of the week or for larger socials depending on what events were on the nearby area. We were also taken out to lunch on a regular basis.

The cost of living was relatively cheap, similar to the cost of living as a student at university. I lived a 20 min walk from work at the rent was approximately £75 a week, everything else in Plymouth was very reasonably priced, some pubs were more expensive than others but on the whole the area was inexpensive.

I heard from the other guys at the office that the nightlife in Plymouth is very good, however I was not able to experience it as I was rarely around at on Friday nights or weekends for personal reasons. I can however recommend the pubs here of which there are plenty!

There were several opportunities, I was part of a 6 a side football team that played once a week on a Thursday. A group from the office often went to play table tennis in the courtyard at the front of the building at lunch time and there is also going to be an office trip to Paint balling in the coming weeks.