Not enjoying work placement

Hi people, I know this post is slightly out of place but I needed to post anonymously so I'm having to post here.. This may be a slightly long post so please bear with me.

I started a work placement in June as a part of my degree and basically I'm not really enjoying it, and I'm not sure how to handle this. The placement is with one of the biggest firms in the world (no exaggeration), I remember literally praying for days before the interviews because getting this placement seemed like it would be the best thing that would ever happen to me and an incredible way to start my career.

There are some really good sides to the placement so far - as interns we're treated like full time employees, given real responsibilities and a lot of events are organised for us with chances to hear from some very senior people and learn a lot about the business. The people are generally really nice as well.

The problem lies in the fact that I really am not enjoying what I'm doing, it isn't what I was expecting. What I've been given to do is really boring quite often, I feel like my skills aren't really been put to use and I'm not really working with anyone else either, I've got a buddy but he's not really too involved with my project, he has other things to take care of so I'm not really in a team environment and don't really have anyone in my immediate environment to get help from when I need it, so I feel like all the pressure is on me as well and I don't know how I will deliver.

There are people doing summer internships who will be leaving in a few weeks, and I'm starting to think I should've done the summer internship instead of the work placement. I feel like this firm might not be the sort of place I want to work at in the future as well for several reasons, and I've had thoughts of leaving and going back to university next month, but everyone in my family is telling me to stick with it for the year and do my best, they're saying if I leave with the rest of the summer interns I will not get a good reference, a chance of getting a job offer will be off the table, and it will be a big mistake in the long term.

I just feel like I'm not going to gain anything further from this experience and I'm not too sure I want to work there in the future, so is it worth sticking with it, or should I go back to uni? Or should I perhaps look for another internship somewhere else doing something I would be more interested in doing? I have no idea what to do and would really appreciate some advice, thanks

Reply 1

Nitebot

Stick with it! Quite frankly it doesn't matter if the firm is happy for you to more or less just sit around and watch others do all the work (I know people over the years who’s placement years were just like that) because it will still sign you off as having carried out satisfactory work experience for 12 months and you’ll have that on your CV.

Reply 2

uberteknik

Stay with it.

Most work placements will leave one feeling under used or at worst used as slave labour so you are not alone in feeling this.

The problem is that your immediate supervisor has to gain trust with your abilities. They don't want extra work by having to redo mistakes which are potentially time consuming, costly and need explaining to higher management.

And neither do they want to spend time explaining everything to you because that is time away from their own workload which is likely to put them under increased pressure.

So that unfortunately is most often the lot of an intern or work placement.

As time progresses and you perform diligently and grow in confidence, you will be given better tasks.

I started my engineering career in a drawing office many years ago (before CAD or desktop PC's) where my first task was to learn hand writing on engineering drawings. I did nothing but copy paragraphs from books, newspapers, textbooks, song lyrics - anything. I did this 37 hours a week for the first 4 weeks until my supervisor said my hand printing was good enough to be used on a real drawing. I then spent the next 2 months hand printing notes and dimensions on to countless engineering drawings! I am now a Principle Engineer for one of the biggest global aerospace companies. Little acorns.

Stick with it. :smile:

Not enjoying work placement

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