Industrial Placement Student Review

I work with the water network. Most of my work specifically involves clean water and projects that aim to fix leaks and/or reduce the risk of them happening. On a day to day basis I will do work on a specific project in this area, helping work out a design to fix this problem, or creating the documents we will give to the contractors, these being drawings and reports.

I was given a fair bit of responsibility. I was in charge of managing the resourcing for one large project I worked on, and had to run meetings if the people who usually ran them was unavailable. In smaller projects I was given the lead role, meaning I was in charge of making sure the work was progressing.

I am not very good at identifying skills, especially if they are soft skills. However I think I have developed my skills in project management and hydraulics.

The main support came from my line manager, who is personable and supportive. I was assigned a 'buddy' to help me settle in, but the support from him was limited, he would answer any questions I asked, but he very rarely worked from the office and didn't reach out to me once I started work. Usually the people in my project team were very helpful at answering any questions I had, but there could be a problem of them being too busy to provide meaningful help.

The company culture and atmosphere was very good, most people are friendly and personable. There was only one other placement student in my office and we didn't work in the same sector, but the office was generally on the young side, so I didn't feel too out of place.

I would say I've mostly really enjoyed my placement. I picked the degree I am doing (civil engineering) more because it was a sensible choice rather than because it was a field I have any passion for. The placement year was to help me decide whether I wanted to actually try and work in civil engineering, or just get the degree and go into another sector. After the placement I definitely want to stay in civil engineering.

Yes