The highlights of being on placement are having the opportunity to work on real engineering projects, such as Proteus, which was relevant and innovative and being able to work on platforms that were made on-site and conducting testing on them. For example, I was able to see the helicopters I was working on taking off from the airfield many times a day. I also saw new prototypes being tested and doing vibrations testing myself on innovations such as the FASGW weapon wing for the Royal Navy Wildcat.

I found the transition from study to work much easier than the transition back to university. I have good self-motivation, so I found working a 9 to 5 job refreshing and enjoyed the freedom of stress-free weekends and evenings.

When returning back to university after my placement, I found that I did gain much better time management skills and completed most of my university work in part C within office hours (although not so much in final year due to the workload!) Also, my placement year developed my understanding on what I was working towards during my degree and what part of the industry I wanted to work in.