My advice? Get involved with as much as you can with the Early Careers community

Why did you decide to do a placement year?

I'm very fortunate that I have multiple family members who are in the engineering industry and all of them said 'Do it, you'll get so much out of it.' What they didn't know was that it was in my plans already…

I've been wanting to get back into an aerospace working environment since my work experience and this was boosted by the fact that a lot of engineering students shared that by having a placement, they were more often than not one step closer to a graduate job.

My aim coming to uni was to leave with a job secured and having worked at BAE Systems first, as a Summer Intern, and then on an Industrial Placement, I feel confident that BAE Systems is where I want that job to be. 

It's also something that is positively promoted and really well supported here at Sheffield; from thinking about it, to looking and applying and then to being on placement, there's a dedicated team every step of the way.

How did you find your placement opportunity?

I actually applied to work at BAE Systems as a Summer Intern, starting the summer before my placement. One of the great things about that, amongst all the experience, was that I was then offered to return on the Industrial Placement scheme - and I took the opportunity with both hands. I remember coming back from my Summer Internship with an offer and contract before a lot of people in my cohort had even started looking! 

The lesson here is to dig into the early careers schemes - sometimes there's an opportunity to fast track stages like I did, so if you can, I'd go for it all over again (it's much less stressful, too!)

Tell us a bit about the role you have been doing whilst on placement

Throughout my time at BAE Systems, I worked on two very contrasting programmes. The company is well known for its critical role in the UK part of Eurofighter Typhoon and I worked as a Governance and Quality Engineer for about four months. My role centred around developing strategies to further improve the way business was conducted, resulting in optimal service at the highest standard. Governance also allowed me to look deeper into Integration Engineering - which is a lot more than bringing a few systems together - and some of the specialties that come with that.

I then moved to the future combat programme for the remaining eight months of my placement and it was nothing short of challenge! BAE Systems is an integral part of the tri-lateral GCAP venture with Italy and Japan; my team was deducing operational context for that product. Using customer needs and existing technology, we were using Model-Based Systems Engineering to help derive requirements and further understanding for both customer and engineers who would be involved. 

What has been your greatest achievement or what is the most interesting part of your placement so far? 

Working at such a diverse company as BAE Systems means I'm not short of things to take pride in; along with the work, the Early Careers community encourages us to get involved with wider parts of the business too.

I was on a team that organised an air-wide celebration event of engineers and single-handedly commemorated all the Air Division Patent awardees on behalf of the Air Chief Technologist. I found this not only massively rewarding, but insightful, as I was interacting with completely different teams, colleagues and programs to my own!

Across both my roles, I have been recognised as a pioneer for change; revising how Governance can be approached and setting out policy and procedure for tri-lateral architecting rules.

This culminated in my requested attendance to Italy and Japan, as well as to Chief Engineer and Ministry of Defence meetings. Those experiences...I have no words to explain how much of a positive impact it made on my career.

What has been the biggest challenge you have faced during your placement?

There's certainly been a few! Definitely going into my second placement and being tasked with multiple tasks based around Model-Based Systems Engineering is up there. Going into a role, I would have hoped to have found parallels to what I was expected to deliver and what I had studied at university, but this was one giant exception. Finding myself in a new environment, team and not having much experience to rely on was daunting; I found that asking those around me and doing some reading up out of the office where I could know the architecture fundamentals was crucial to understanding it. That then allowed for me to be able to support others in their understanding - both nationally and internationally!

What would be your top tip / best piece of advice for other students considering doing a placement year?

Check out the Early Careers schemes for the places you're looking to apply to/work for; it's great to get an idea of the support that will be offered to you during the placement and beyond! Once the placement has started, get involved with as much as you can with the Early Careers community - be that engaging with workshops or talking to colleagues who have been through the schemes. More often than not, engineers around you will want to help you grow as much as you can during your time with them - and then you're building your network which is the other important thing to do. If you're unsure of any of this, check out what the Year In Industry team put on in the academic year before you start placement to start building the necessary skills!

How has your placement year influenced your future career plans / what do you plan on doing after graduation? 

Influenced? It's definitely determined it in many respects! I knew I wanted to work in an aerospace engineering environment, likely with more of a Systems focus, but the time at BAE Systems shows that knowing that is nowhere near enough! I'll be looking to initially gain more experience in technical systems associated with an aircraft and getting a feel for that. Then, the world is my oyster! Having enjoyed my time in architecting and investigating integration, I'm keen to pursue those further but also into the unknown - such as supportability. This came about from chatting with people in my office and seeing how the work they do might be impacted by the architecting. Overall, I think this can be summarised as my placement has shown me there is SO much more than what meets the eye in the company I spent a year at and I'm looking forward to getting stuck back in furthering my career.