Civil Engineer Review

My role within the company is as principal designer and project leader for wastewater projects in the north east. Day to day it involves managing various tasks and resources while also designing various aspects of a wastewater project. These designs usually involve hydraulic calculations and structural calculations.

Through this degree apprenticeship, Ive developed my critical thinking skills, technical understanding of engineering principles and methods, developed a deep understanding of engineering in real life situations and also helped improve my professional communication skills

I have absolutely no regrets about choosing to go through the degree apprenticeship route over more traditional career paths. Although the course itself is longer than a conventional full time degree, i feel as though my knowledge and skills have exponentially increased as the programme has continued.

Ive found that Mott Macdonald gives degree apprentices the support but also the freedom to allow them to develop areas that they feel they arent fully confident in. As well as this, Mott Macdonald gives apprentices tasks and responsibilities that full time engineers would normally have which creates a collaborative working environment

Mott Macdonald has various support groups and workplace mentors that are there to help us whenever we need it. They also have an Early Careers Professionals (ECP) network that allows every single graduate and apprentice that has recently joined, to collaborate and socialise with one another.

We were the first year to study a civil engineering degree apprenticeship through Northumbria University therefore felt some disorganisation and miscommunication when it came to what the university was expecting and how they would be structuring the course. As the years have went on however, I feel as though the university has vastly improved the way they give the course to apprentices and can see this improving more after Ive left.

While the civil engineering qualification covers all different kinds of engineering projects and roles, i feel as though the degree has helped develop my understanding of engineering as a whole and how what i do in the workplace can affect different aspects of a project.

I am a member of the Early Careers Professional network (ECP) where myself and other engineers in the first 5 years of their role come together to organise and partake in engineering networking events, engineering knowledge showcases and also social events like football and badminton clubs.

Yes

Mott Macdonald prides itself on developing and supporting new starters creating a challenging but supported atmosphere where new starters are given professional responsibilities within a project from the start but also given direct mentoring and support from senior engineers.

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