Abin is an Electrical and Electronics Engineering student from Aston University. He has recently finished his placement as a Research and Development intern for the Electrical and Electronics department at Handicare. He worked collaboratively to mainly develop and modify existing products as well as new projects.
After receiving a call from Step regarding the intern position at Handicare, I researched further into the company and decided that Handicare would really benefit me and provide me with the right experience I will need to further improve myself as an engineer. Step was really helpful in the application process, by guiding me on what theory skills I should elaborate on within the application.
I felt anxious during the early days at Handicare, as I had never been in an engineering workplace before. But my nerves faded away as I met the team I would be working with and my fellow Mechanical engineering intern, who was also from Aston University! During the first two weeks I had a handover period with the previous intern, this really helped me understand the nature of work I would be doing and allowed me to set targets, and what skills to improve upon during my year. Some of my responsibilities were to create simulations of electronic circuits, programming of printed circuit boards and working with different programming languages to name a few.
Learning New Skills From Theory
One of the main benefits from this placement was learning to apply the theory knowledge from university into real life situations in the workplace, this really proved to me the importance of theoretical knowledge in engineering to work safely and efficiently. The most important skill in my opinion has to be problem solving and decision making by using my own initiative. This was a skill which I was lacking in as I entered my placement and really put me at a disadvantage as I often found myself relying on others for help. I was able to grow out of this behaviour and started to use my own initiative to solve problems which benefited me greatly, and therefore I most certainly will be using this skill in my future studies and careers. I also really enjoyed working with other departments in the company as it allowed me to meet new people and boosted my confidence.
I would highly recommend doing a placement for anyone unsure as it really helps you prepare for the workplace. Working with a recruitment agency was an added bonus as it made the whole application process much easier and the help received from Step really made the whole process less anxious.
Abin