I know some of you lot work in the engineering sector and I figure it won't hurt to ask....

I am a (slightly antique) second year Mechanical Engineering and Design student. As part of my course I can opt to take next year out and undertake a placement year working for an engineering company of my choosing.

Obviously the usual suspects advertise for students, (Rolls Royce, Augusta Westland, EDF energy etc). I do not really have any aspirations to work for an enormous company again. I would much prefer to work in a smaller company where you don't just feel like a cog in the machine.

I am a very practical person with loads of experience doing all kinds of things. Having been at University for a couple of years I also now have some theory to back the hands on experience up.

I am trying to find a company to work for where I can get involved in engineering design, modeling, prototype creation, quality management etc and really have an input to a company and help them push forwards. Just need a project to get my teeth into and off I will go


Do any of you likely lot work in a company that takes on placement engineers or can maybe suggest companies that might be worth looking at? (If I am being really picky I would love to live near the mountains or abroad... I can dream right? )

I can provide my CV if anyone wants it
my website www.hined.co.uk

Unless you get into a REALLY small company you probably won't get involved in ALL of those areas in any company - I'm part of a team of 8 engineers in a small company (each with their own field o knowledge) and I get to do work from concept to delivery but for us to take someone on we'd probably start with them in one small section of that to keep reigns on the risk. That said, it's certainly not impossible.

What sort of field interests you?

Thanks for your reply.

I don't expect to be able to walk into a job and do everything (I wish I was that good!), but I would like eventually to be in that sort of position. Working as part of a small team where you can at least see how what you are doing fits into the bigger picture makes more sense to me.

Personally I am interested in cars, helicopters, bikes etc but job wise if there is a challenge and some problems to solve I don't mind if I am building turnip mining machines.

I really do enjoy the CAD FEA side of things but also the more I read into the subject, managing quality...Quantifying performance of manufacture etc also seems quite an interesting topic.

If you are interested in designing / engineering childrens toys then pm me. We are looking for people with many of the skill sets you describe, but applied to toys.
Www.designbytouch.com

If not , good luck with your search.
Matt

If you are not picky, try one of the major food manfacturers, always crying out for engineers
Perkins engines at Peterborough

Depending how much you expect to be paid, one of the kit manufacturers.

may be worth writing to my place of work we make some nice interesting things

http://www.elekta.com/company/career-center.html

Sweden and UK are the major design centres for hardware/electronics.

when you graduate, you should consider this www.ktponline.org.uk a national scheme that places recent graduates (no age barrier) into a range of fully paid projects. projects are aimed at delivgering real and very significant commercial gains, but of equal importance is the outcomes for the graduate, training, commercial development access to the wider operations of the business. 75-80% of ours are offered jobs at the close of the project (typically two to three years) and the others all have somewhere else to go, given the fast track career development they get. the company makes a serious investment in these so this isnt just a student project that can get forgotten.

the scheme has been around for nearly forty years now, so is pretty well proven.

give me a shout if you want to know anymore

paul