Callum McIver

Role: Electrical Engineering Summer Placement

Location: Heysham

The placement has allowed me to develop some of the real life skills necessary for any job that you don't always get the chance to develop through University.

The careers coaching session helped me to focus on what aspects of a job are important to me and to prioritise these to decide what jobs are going to best suit my needs in the future.

Through my presentation I was able to explain in some detail all of the different things I've been up to on my placement and explain how these developed my employability skills.

I did not take part in a specific shadowing day although through my placement in Heysham I have had the opportunity to spend time both offshore and at the Gas processing terminals in Barrow which has given me an insight into several different areas of the business.

Seeing many sides of a business helps you to develop a better understanding of the common goals everyone is working toward and how each department fits into that.

I definitely feel that I will be more employable to other companies having coming through such a structured scheme focused on developing core employability skills.

Being given real responsibility to complete a real task has boosted my confidence so that I now feel comfortable that in the future I will be capable of adding value to a company.

Different aspects of my project have challenged different skills and to complete my project successfully I had to work on and develop my self management and management of relationships.

In general I think the social opportunities for summer placement students are good, for example this summer there was a Summer Placement Facebook page which has helped me keep in touch with other placement students.