Strengthening my application for summer placements

Oh, I have another question! Does it matter whether you get a placement in a massive company, or a smaller one? And what if it's one that doesn't have much to do with whatever I'm applying for when I come to look for a job?

lol, do engineers do much soldering?

Yeah, there are. I looked on Gradcracker a day or two ago and there were lots of banking placements too

At my university, students doing their individual project either do it in conjunction with their placement company, meaning that the project is also owned by that company, and is directly relevant to them, or they get to choose from a list of of projects from the department, many of which will be industry related as it will be part of an academic's work or area, and a company will have originally came to the university with a problem etc. that they need some research or academic help with.

It's probably the same at your university given that it all tends to follow the IMechE guidelines.

You also need some sales skills in order to pitch your project as relevant or of interest to the company, too.



I can't answer that question, but I can say that there are many advantages to interning in a small company compared to a massive one. I did my summer placement at a company with over 100K employees and operations in almost every country in the world that isn't landlocked - so a pretty big company. With larger companies you are essentially one of many, many, it's easier to get pigeon holed into one area and you don't necessarily get a particularly broad overview of the company.

With smaller companies, I'm told, you're a much more important part of the business, the team is much tighter knit, and you get more exposure.

Yes, we do. Most of the time we can get stuff manufactured, but we do our share of soldering too. I hate solder-fumes.

I don't want to work in a bank, though. Despite the fact that it's more lucrative, it's plain boring.

Okay, it sounds like I should be looking for smaller companies. Did your placement actually involve engineering work? Because I talked to someone who did one this summer (something to do with power generation IIRC) and he said it was all technician's work. I don't want anything like that.