Phil
Phil Came to university as a mature student, he was in his early forties when he commenced his undergraduate mechanical engineering degree. He had attended university once before many years ago studying an unrelated subject but found that mental ill health meant that he couldn’t keep up with the demands of the course. After dropping out of his first-degree, Phil entered the workplace and tried his hand at a number of jobs but in the ensuing years found his mental health problems had become too great for him to be able to function effectively which ultimately led to a hiatus from both education and employment which lasted almost 15 years. Once his health had begun to improve and his life was getting back on track Phil re-entered academia to begin his engineering course. He elected to study on a course with a placement option because it was, in his opinion, an opportunity for self- discovery. After hiding away for so long, re-entering academia had been a challenge, but for him the true source of anxiety would be returning to the workplace. University he felt was in some respects an artificial environment, one in which he was looked after, where allowances were often made because students are after all, still learning. In the workplace however, he knew from past experiences that such accommodations are not a certainty. In the workplace there are significant responsibilities and expectations and real-world consequences and Phil worried that after having struggled to perform well in the workplace in the past, he may once again fail to succeed. But for Phil the sandwich year, whilst anxiety provoking, provided a novel opportunity. One in which he could learn more about the type of person he was and what that might mean for where he best belongs in his industry. With this goal as his main motivation Phil applied for a placement in a large production factory in a project management position (a role he suggests is frequently adopted by engineering graduates). He knew from his research and conversations with others that the workplace he had selected was a large somewhat ‘corporate’ environment, one in which he never really saw himself belonging, and one which might require him to ‘play the corporate role’. This was a role with which he had never really identified, but his life had changed so dramatically over the course of the past two decades that he wasn’t really sure what he wanted anymore.
Phil described his experience of his placement year as being largely negative, he ultimately found that he was not suited to the corporate environment, and unfortunately, he had to undergo a year of hard experiences to come to that realisation. He described the factory as being very rigid in terms of rules and routines. Employees were expected to clock in and out precisely when scheduled, breaks had to last exactly one hour, if they ran over even by a few minutes a reprimand would follow. But Phil worked hard and worked long beyond his scheduled hours and so felt entitled to an extra ten-minutes
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on his break here and there. His superiors’ lack of appreciation for this fact, he felt, constituted a general lack of recognition of his efforts. Health and safety procedures were numerous and detailed, and it was each individual employee’s responsibility to ensure they were enforced. Banisters had to be held when walking down the stairs, staff had to be stationary when taking a call, hard hats had to be worn in certain settings at all times, if anyone saw anyone failing to abide by such rules it was their duty to address it with the transgressor, irrespective of any positional hierarchy. Admittedly Phil under certain circumstances rather enjoyed the latter rule as he could make a game of calling out senior employees that he wasn’t too fond of for their health and safety violations, but more often than not, Phil was the one found breaking the rules as opposed to enforcing them. In addition to the rigidity of the policies and procedures Phil experienced in the workplace, he also experienced a formality in his interactions with his colleagues, with people keeping their ‘professional face’ on for all workplace interactions. But Phil identified as being very person-centred, for him an essential component of a workplace is the atmosphere. He wanted to be able to form friendships that might even exist outside of the workplace, and whilst he could for the most part maintain the professional relationships that he was limited to forming, that wasn’t what he desired. Further still, there was on some occasions, a complete lack of comradery or even professional courtesy. Phil recalled one incident where he had attended a meeting in where two of his colleagues were supposed to be in attendance to support him, but they had chosen not to attend. In this meeting, having been left on his own, Phil was assigned a task which he felt highly inappropriate for his position as a placement student, which subsequently resulted in him reacting very poorly to a senior member of the team essentially telling his boss “you’ve got no chance”. Phil knew even at the time that he had not responded in the right way and later apologised, but noted that in general, the tendency to react inappropriately is a recurrent problem in his life.
Interestingly, Phil felt very competent in terms of the actual work that the role entailed. Whilst he had no expectations or real aims for the job as such before beginning his placement, he soon found through discussions with colleagues that there was a desire within the factory for an online system of resources. In wanting to make a significant contribution to the company during his time on placement and to work on something ‘worthwhile’ Phil put himself forward for the task of developing and implementing the online system. Such was the size of the task, that in hindsight he reflected he probably wouldn’t have attempted it had he known the work that it entailed, and yet he felt proud to have accomplished it. In carrying out his task over the course of the year, Phil was provided with a budget of over £10,000 and a team of staff to lead, which he did effectively, ultimately producing a valuable resource for the company. And yet whilst he had put himself forward for a difficult task, worked hard at it and ultimately succeeded in it, both himself and his employers agreed that that
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particular workplace was not the place for him. In Phil’s case technical ability and even softer skills such as organisation, and the ability to lead a team weren’t enough to compensate for the fact that the person he identified himself as, his values, and in many cases his behaviours, were not in fitting with the persona desired by his workplace. It did not come naturally to Phil to behave like his colleagues, to really think about his response before reacting, to maintain a constant level of professionalism, to stick to rules and regulations he felt overly pedantic. Whilst he recognised what was expected and desired in the workplace it was not in his nature to conform, which ultimately led to the realisation that a large corporate environment was not for him, he needed somewhere somewhat more flexible.
Since completing his undergraduate course, Phil completed his PhD and has recently obtained work as an associate researcher at the same university in which he studied. Despite his negative experience, he did not regret his placement as he learned a lot about himself and his professional identity which ultimately shaped his career path, albeit in an entirely different direction.
Sam
Sam is in his master’s year of his automotive and motorsport engineering degree. He came to university having completed a manufacturing and engineering B-Tech course at college. Coming to university, to study on a degree he had assumed would be very practical, only to learn it had a big focus on the theory was difficult for Sam. He really struggled with the maths and found the limited number of practical sessions lack lustre in comparison to those he had grown accustomed to at college. At university, a practical session entailed tasks such as watching the stress and strain on a bike as someone peddled, and producing a written report to be assessed, at college he and his peers produced an off-road buggy from scratch - the two didn’t compare for him.
Sam gained a placement position working as a support engineer working on car engines. He was hopeful before embarking on his placement that it would allow him to see where his knowledge from his university course applied practically, and more generally where the content of the course fit into the bigger picture of industry.
Sam described his transition into his placement year as ‘horrible’. He had to move to a new area and lease an apartment alone, he was no longer close to his friends and no longer living with his family. He had to learn how to do things for himself, and only had a matter of days to adjust to his new area before beginning his first week on placement. When he arrived at his placement, he learned the first full day would entail driving to his new company’s headquarters in London to collect his laptop. The next few days involved introductions to his team, a driver training course, and becoming acquainted
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with company user manuals. In large part that was the extent of his introduction to his company, as within a week of him joining, his entire team left to work in America for over a month, leaving Sam behind to figure out his job almost entirely alone. Sam admittedly had some company during this period as a separate team stayed behind, but their role in the company was different to his own. He did however appreciate their presence and would ask for their help wherever possible. Over the course of the month he found himself being asked to do work for the remaining team whilst also trying to get to grips with his own tasks with little assistance, in his eyes it was a sink or swim situation. Sam worked hard and was confident to ask for help wherever he could get it, he would call his team in America and send emails across, he would consult user manuals, and speak to the other team, but he still found this period extremely difficult. This was exacerbated further by the fact that his team knew nothing about him, Sam was the first intern they had had and their introduction had been brief, they didn’t know what he had done before or what he was capable of, they would send over emails asking him to do certain jobs that he had absolutely no experience with and didn’t know how to approach. This resulted in lengthy email chains, where his team had to try to talk him through the process across different time zones. Further still, Sam as a student had to get much of his work signed off, so he was filled with uncertainty as to what he was actually allowed to do.
With time Sam began to settle into his placement, but there were still challenges to be faced. Working for a UK based German company he had to learn to navigate dealing with colleagues and clients based in different countries, he had to deal with language barriers and the ways in which meaning could get lost in translation. But he rose to the challenge, even drawing upon his GCSE German to try to converse with his colleagues in the office, which wasn’t necessarily required, but he felt they appreciated his efforts regardless. Sam also had to learn from whom to gain information, and how to go about getting it which could be extremely difficult, particularly when dealing with the customers, but he felt these experiences developed his people skills.
Sam made a friend in his manager who he got on well with from the start. When his lease ran out on his apartment, and he was having to commute to and from work toward the end of his placement, his manager even gave him a place to stay with him. He also made a friend in a placement student on the other team who he would sometimes see outside of work. But in general, he was quite isolated, he didn’t live anywhere near home, but he also didn’t live near his colleagues which meant most nights he would finish work, make tea and go straight to bed. For company, he would drive the 300-mile round trip to go home and see his family every weekend. This was the aspect of placement he found hardest, and on the days where work had not gone well, he was aware of just how bad a frame of mind he could get into. Though this was incredibly difficult for Sam he recognised that it wasn’t all bad. Because he had little to look forward to at home, he was happy to spend long hours at work, he
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would start early and stay late and really engage with his job, creating a good impression with his colleagues, and he felt it meant he was able to get a lot more of out of the experience. This was also helped by the fact that he worked on flexitime and was largely responsible for his own hours meaning if he worked hard enough in the week he could leave early and spend a longer time with his family at the weekend. Managing his hours in such a way he felt had helped him to mature, as did the independence of living alone.
Whilst his isolation was a challenge and his transition was problematic, ultimately Sam came to love his placement. With time, his colleagues began to understand his capabilities and he understood how they worked, and things began to flow much more easily. He was given jobs he was able to take full responsibility for and often he was even busier than his more established colleagues which he really enjoyed. They appreciated his strong practical knowledge that he had developed in his early education and often he would recognise issues with the cars that his colleagues that had worked there for years couldn’t spot. Further still, placement students from other teams would come to him for help with practical tasks.
Sam found when returning to university that it was much more enjoyable than the first 2 years though he really struggled at first getting back into the routine. His theoretical knowledge had developed over the years, and the time away during placement had offered a welcome break from his studies. He had a renewed motivation, helped by the fact that he now knew how much he enjoyed working with industry and how important it was to get his degree and get back out there. He is currently meeting with his placement company in order to arrange returning to work with them after graduating.
Kevin
Kevin had always been passionate about subjects such as maths and science, so applying to study on a Mechanical Engineering course at his local university had been an obvious choice for him, as it allowed him to study his area of interest, all the while remaining at home. University had been a very different experience to what he had been previously used to. He was able to use his time between lectures to recap the course content at his own pace, and no longer felt there was the constant pressure of somebody monitoring him. As someone who is very self-motivated, the level of independence he was afforded at university worked well for him. He did well in the first two years of his course. He maintained high grades which he attributed largely to his work ethic and the support of his like-minded friends. Before his exams Kevin would rally his friends to spend days working through textbooks and past exam papers in an attempt to collectively revise, and they each appreciated the opportunities to group their knowledge and share their ideas.
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For Kevin the most challenging aspect of his undergraduate degree was the practical work, though this was also the aspect of his learning he most enjoyed. Because he had taken the more academic route to becoming an engineer, he had very little practical experience. Theory he recognised was necessary, but to him it was almost pointless learning it if he didn’t then have opportunity to personally apply it and see how it related to the practical side of things. Fortunately, his course included weekly trips to the local college designed toward building practical skills, but he often felt he didn’t really know what to do there. Thankfully he had friends who had taken a different route from leaving school, and so had gained more practical experience before attending university. So often they would work together, with Kevin explaining the theoretical knowledge and his friends the practical. He found his college visits to be one of the most valuable learning opportunities at university, because they provided him with new insights, but without his friends, he felt at points that he would have really struggled. When the time came for Kevin to apply for placements, he didn’t really have much of an idea of what he wanted. He knew he wanted to stay close to home and he ideally wanted it to be a placement role that interested him, but ultimately after sending out numerous applications he just wanted an offer. After numerous rejections Kevin was eventually offered a role in the area of automotive engineering for a large international corporation at a site based closed to home. The company was constituted of a variety of departments each of which specialised in different areas. As a placement student over the