"Companies, today, want people with experience and a degree."

Lorin Bosoc hopes to become a successful geotechnical engineer in the future.  Now in fourth year, he shared the story behind a placement he undertook in summer 2014 with engineering firm CH2M Hill, and offered up plenty of helpful advice for students looking to go out on placement too. 

CH2M Hill is a hugely successful multinational engineering corporation, so first off, Lorin told us how he managed to get the opportunity.

“All of the advertised placements I was aware of were in subjects areas I don’t really want to profess in. I started sending a lot of e-mails to be pro-active and apply speculatively, but I didn’t really get much back. It was around April and I hadn't managed to secure a placement.”

“I went to the Edinburgh ICE (Institution of Civil Engineers) branch’s annual dinner and met a guy there who worked for the company I eventually completed my placement with. We got talking, and I wasn’t even thinking about asking him if he knew someone, but he asked me if I wanted him to pass my CV on to the director of the geotechnical department at CH2M Hill. I said ‘yeah! of course!’. A  few days later I got an e-mail from the director, who became my boss, asking if I could send her my CV. I did. After that, I went through the company's recruitment process, which was very difficult."

Lorin says the size of his workload during the placement was one of his biggest challenges, but he doesn’t regret it for a second.

"It was a bit of a shock to the system really. Everyone I knew who had completed an internship before me told me ‘Ah, you don’t need to worry, you’re not going to use most of what you learnt at university.’ that’s nonsense. My placement was full of things I had to know. Everything I learned during my geotechnical modules I had to apply during my placement. Besides that, I had to read a lot more, so I could develop and understand new concepts the engineers were using.

“The workload slowly increased and increased. By the time I completed my placement, I was working really hard over long hours, but I learnt a lot. I have to admit. I learnt a lot.” 

“Networking is the most important thing.”

Lorin has very clear ideas about the best ways students can find a placement opportunity like this.

“Don’t just apply online, because it may not work. If you’re a Civil Engineering student, for example, attend ICE events which is the Institute of Civil Engineers. It’s how you meet people and get the opportunity to network."

“Meeting people, and just being interested in the subject is so important. Unfortunately, who you know sometimes matters more than what you know and who you are. Everyone has a degree, it’s more or less the same, some universities teach different things, but the core of the degrees are the same. I’d encourage students to do stuff outside the university, as well as concentrating on their subjects.”

Lastly, we asked Lorin how we would sum up his placement in three words.

"Tough. Exciting, and fulfilling.”