Author: Jack Woods -
As part of my Mechanical Engineering degree, I spent a year working at Buro Happold - a building consultancy in Bath. Even with the industrial placement scheme being one of the driving forces behind my decision to study at Bath, the year was far more valuable than I first anticipated.
While searching for job opportunities is tough, we are incredibly lucky at Bath to have a full-time placements team in the faculty that offered me advice on my CV, cover letters and organised several lectures covering interviews and assessment centres. Developing these skills prior to applying for graduate positions during a busy final year is incredibly useful, and when I eventually landed a job offer in an industry I was interested in, it was a huge weight off my shoulders.
Although it sounds cliché, you really do apply a lot of what you have learnt at University in the workplace and building on these in a field of your interest really does broaden your horizons. Learning about PID control of hot water systems put my second-year control systems module into far more context!
The experience also gave me a refreshed sense of purpose as to why I went to study Mechanical Engineering in the first place. After two years of theory, it is easy to forget that eventually someone will be paying you to apply this stuff for real! This has certainly provided me with strengthened motivation going into my final two years at Bath, particularly to carry out the larger business and design projects that will allow me to put my skills gained on placement into practice to better my degree.
The placement scheme at Bath has proven so valuable to me, and I could not recommend it enough to anyone unsure of whether they want to do one (I never thought I did until I started studying here). You can read more about my placement on my poster here.
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