Project Controls Review

Project controls is a little like project management, however if you are more a technical type of person rather than a peoples person, then project controls is more for you! You get to control programs, and work with data to produce the best output for the demanding stakeholders.

Depending on the firm you work for, in my experience Arup has invested greatly in me to be my best, providing any training I need to complete my job and more. One of my faviourites was the excel macros training course, I don't even need to touch the mouse anymore when I am on excel! Wizzing through the task also allows me to relax afterwards and take a break with my cup of hot chocolate :)

The program is designed to allow people to start from any background, considering everyones position. Furthermore, the lecturers try and get to know you, to try and provide personalised examples for you to better understand the context. Lastly, the workshop are life savers, because learning theory is one thing but actually applying it, in my case makes me understand the course better.

The basics are there but its still improving every year, not saying thats a bad thing, however the changes in forms to complete monthly got more confusing with time. All solved now I hope as they introduced an automated system, that makes life much more easier.

As long as you ask anything is possible within reason, the employer wants you to succeed so anything within their power can be arranged. As they can't read your mind you must speak, and be open and honest if you need help.

Emails on some days take a while to get a response back from, otherwise they are always willing to help in class and out of lesson hours. I always find it best to write down the questions I have and have a proper discussion during class, as other apprentices may have similar questions.

Indescibable, because at work they show and explain what they want you to do, but I found that a lot of questions like: why do we do that & what does that mean, come up because they don't have hours to explain to you everything from the beginning, so these classes are precious as they give you the background to your daily work.

LOTS! The ones I found out about so far are: Monday - mixed football, Tuesday - rock climbing, Wednesday - mixed netball. And those are the out of work hours ones, these are also some lunch time clubs like coding in python for biginners, and of course for the lovers that would like to pass down the knowledge and teach it first hand.

Yes

It's a wonderfully environment to work in, with a huge amount of benefits and activities to participate in. The office is open 24/7, giving me that feeling of a second home that I could come to study and increase quality of my work if needed to.

Get involved, ask questions and never say no, because life is short so you might as well participate and knowledge is power so why say no?