When I started this placement my objectives were to learn new skills and experience what engineering would be like in a professional work environment. After working with my colleagues as a student engineer this past year I am confident to say that I have achieved both these goals. Not only was I fortunate enough to work on two projects but also to develop tools like the CRAU app that are being used by hardware team to improve products.
Working as a full time employee is vastly different to the student experience most are accustomed to. Whilst both have projects that have deadlines, working in an environment where you are supported by other engineers makes the whole experience much more enjoyable as you aren’t struggling with your work alone. cellXica has a great base of highly experienced engineers who were very supportive and contributed a lot of their time in helping me with the different aspects of the projects I was working on. We had various conversations about the tasks we were working on, or showing me around new equipment, or even just friendly chats in between lunch breaks.
Besides these projects I also learned a lot about the telecommunications infrastructure after attending workshops explaining how the different mobile network generations work. Overall, I believe the placement was undoubtedly beneficial as I learned a lot about practical engineering and developing professional relationships. I am grateful to have had the chance to experience it.