Congratulations to our Industrial Cadets Platinum and Platinum Leader Award finalists
Updated: Mar 28
We are pleased to announce EDT's Industrial Cadets Platinum and Platinum Leader Award finalists for 2023 are the following students:
Christopher Wordsworth, a EDT Industrial Cadets Year in Industry placement student at Springboard Pro Limted
Karin Popovicova, a EDT Industrial Cadets Year in Industry placement student at Haleon plc
Serkan Boz, a EDT Industrial Cadets Year in Industry placement student at Balfour Beatty plc
Below is what our three Industrial Cadets Platinum and Platinum Leader finalist students said they learnt during their Year in Industry placements.
Christopher Wordsworth
Springboard Pro ltd
Student Engineer
The projects I worked on were based mainly in R&D: designing, writing protocols and testing products. Working from the very small to handheld, no two medical device products were the same. I tended to be tasked to experiment on them in various ways then interpreting the results and feeding back with insights to both project leaders and clients. I was fortunate enough to be able to present and talk to clients on a regular basis. Outside of project work, I chose to expand my role into the outreach, social and charity areas of the company.
Over the course of my placement, I often went straight from one project to another. This often meant that I had to quickly learn about a product before carrying out tasks, designing and experimenting to get useful and meaningful results. Developing the ability to ask the right questions and then independently getting on with key tasks meant that I strengthened core competencies such as communication and collaboration, critical thinking, and organisation. Reflecting on the project work I carried out, being able to schedule and track time dependant tests as well as being able to work alongside other project team members were common issues across each of the projects. I learnt to implement regular catchups and trackers into project plans highlighting to project leaders how useful I found them on previous projects.
Toward the end of my placement, I was given independence to complete one of the project deliverables by myself, only needing to check in with the project leader when I thought an additional test should be completed to strengthen the results, I would go on to present to client. The project leader gave feedback saying how they were impressed that a Year in Industry student could get on with the magnitude of task set and competently complete without needing constant help or aid.
During my placement, I actively engaged with young people and the wider community. From hosting and managing a Nuffield research placement student to visiting local schools, I have been shown that when you engage a young person, they can sense your passion for the topic that you are talking about. My impact, I feel, comes from being there to talk about what I feel is a great career path for inquiring minds who love maths and physics. This was highlighted whilst talking to the Nuffield research placement student during their time at the company who became more passionate about what they were working over the course of the placement.
One of Springboard’s core ethos’s is to help lives across the world, during my year, I was a key participant on a charity initiative to design and develop a novel bike braking system for amputees for a charity in Colombia. From brainstorming to design and testing, I worked as part of a small team to produce a solution which was sent to Colombia to be user tested. I was also involved in hosting an event in the office for local girl guide and brownie units, talking to them about engineering and careers in STEM.
Karin Popovicova
Haleon plc
HR Student/HR Stabilization Project Manager
I had an amazing opportunity to be a placement student in the Global Change Team – overlooking the separation and leading the employees through the process of building a new 100% consumer healthcare-focused company called Haleon.
Among my key pieces of work -:
Eleven Global Employee Impact Assessments
Review and re-structure of the Leadership Community
Data readiness for the Quality and Supply Chain (QCS) applications cutover
QSC Separation Intranet content management
The first Haleon European Work Council (EWC)
Mentoring students with neurodiversity under the Programme SEARCH
Menopause Agenda
Career coaching of students at Ashmole Academy
Having been very active already at the university, I could draw on and further develop my abilities to manage multiple projects at the same time, prioritize and adapt to changing circumstances, as well as think in the agile way, thus exceeding the expectations of my team about the added value a placement student could have!
Due to my involvement with six different teams, I contributed to success across the business.
In DEI, I researched and proposed the Menopause Agenda for Haloen.
In QSC, I achieved the data readiness for the applications cutover two months before the deadline, allowing the workstream to report green for separation.
In Executive Leadership, I analysed and helped to set up the new Leadership Community.
In Communications, I became the content owner of the QSC Separation webpage, making it the function’s one-stop shop for information
In Employee Relations, I helped to organise the first EWC
Making an extra step, I also supported Project SEARCH that helps students with neurodiversity to gain employability skills in real work environment. Helping to facilitate the development sessions or having 1 to 1 sessions to enhance students’ communication and presentation skills, I saw the impact it had on their confidence and employability potential!
Serkan Boz
Balfour Beatty plc
Civil Engineering Student
I worked as a Student Civil Engineer for the railway department in the Eastern region which was an exciting yet rewarding experience. My work objectives included:
Preparing Task Briefing Sheets
Preparing and updating Construction Phase Plans (CPP) and Work Package Plans (WPP)
Creating Whiteboard presentations for upcoming projects
Creating 3D models in Revit and AutoCAD, including floor plans and elevations
Drafting methodologies and pricing documents
Preparing the required documents to apply for a site access permit
Creating labour request forms and safe work package forms
Surveying and site engineering projects
Managing worksite and manpower to undertake tasks in accordance with the programme and design
I've worked on multiple Wheel Timber Bridge renewals, demolition of old signal rooms, tactile paving installations, and high intensity development projects. I've also decided to do most of the site surveying after becoming familiar with them, giving colleagues more time to focus on tasks that were beyond my authority. I've worked in the office for both the Civils and Tracks teams to become familiar with their projects and work in order to develop my professional skills more quickly and see other ways of doing things from different colleagues in order to assess and find the most effective way for me.
After some time, I made the decision to become more involved in site engineering to balance my knowledge and experience in both office and site work, which earned the trust of my managers to manage a small project in Southampton while organising and planning the tasks myself under the supervision of a site manager. I was able to complete crucial documentation tasks and presentation slides, followed by site engineering in projects for the Eastern and Southern regions. I've also begun doing the majority of the site surveying, such as platform inspections for tactile paving and completing survey reports for the client.
I was then asked to create a 3D model of a site where the client planned to build new sidings and train service pits on top of an old one that had been buried under soil, to show the client how the existing ones looked. Furthermore, I was tasked with redesigning the current Balfour Beatty depot in 3D in order to create a new training centre for colleagues, complete with office containers, parking, and multiple training zones like OLE, rail cutting, and welding.
Furthermore, I participated in a design challenge with placement students for Balfour Beatty, which was building The COP (Centre of Our Planet) in Glasgow, which had to be a 100% sustainable building, and we passed the challenge and received a certificate for it.
Congratulations to Christopher, Karin and Serkan from all of us at EDT you all worked very hard and deserve to win!