This year DFC were pleased to host three different summer placements. Ella, Andrejs and Ian are full-time students and joined us for six to eight weeks each. Read about Ella’s invaluable feedback and Andrejs and Ian’s post-placement reflections below.

Ella’s summer placement experience:

At DFC we pride ourselves on helping others learn, providing feedback and seeking feedback as we go. Our first summer placement Ella was kind enough to answer a few questions on her experience and provided useful feedback to DFC.

DFC recognise that new starters need a lot of support, especially when entering the industry directly from university. We provide an overview of each task and then conduct a review after. This ensures the student has an adequate brief to begin with and the opportunity to reflect after; Ella noted, ‘...every task I completed was spoken about afterward with the person or at least comments on the piece of work of where I have gone wrong and why. Also, my colleagues gave me guidance of where the information would be and examples of the task I was doing’.

Fire Engineering is so much more than writing detailed fire strategy reports and reading codes and standards, it relies heavily on collaboration and ingenuity. Ella noted that her experience ‘definitely made me aware of all the tasks a Fire Engineer does. It has also shown me how the fire industry is constantly changing, and I think DFC are great at providing new information’.

Time management is key when there is so much to do. When we have graduates join we encourage them to gain a wide range of experience to figure out what they enjoy most. Whilst recapping on her time with DFC Ella noted ‘…I have not just learnt Fire Engineering skills but also life skills. Organisation and time management specifically, this was through tasks being assigned and I have to make sure I can do them before the deadline and being organised for the next day so I know exactly what I need to do. I have also learnt a lot about MS Excel when helping Waqas with evacuation calculations. As well as new tips on writing report and using MS Word features that I would never normally use before which will definitely help next year at the university’.

When we asked Ella to describe what she enjoyed most about her placement, Ella noted, ‘I have enjoyed all of it. I think working with different people who have different expertise has been great and I have learnt so much. I also think going to the different offices and meeting almost everyone face to face and being in the office environment is something I’ll miss. Overall, the best part was being involved with the team at DFC’.

We are delighted that Ella has enjoyed her time with DFC and developed skills that she can utilise both at university and once she joins the industry.

Finally, we asked Ella to describe DFC in three words, she responded, ‘welcoming, friendly and flexible’.

Andrejs’ summer placement experience: 

‘I was a bit nervous, worried and I didn’t know what to expect… How would I perform going into my first summer placement job in a discipline that I don’t know much about as a chemical engineering student at a fire safety consultancy company?

My first week at DFC began with a reading list to familiarise myself with many aspects of fire engineering. I have always been quite an inquisitive person and I had tons of big picture questions about the company as well as the professional career development side. Everyone in the office was friendly and supportive and I felt confident to reach out to any of my colleagues no matter their seniority. DFC values transparency and so for every question I asked, I received an honest and thorough answer.

During my time at DFC, I worked on numerous projects and a plethora of varied tasks such as evacuation calculations for an arena, preparing a fire strategy report for a high-residential building, and undertaking external fire spread calculations for a high-rise office tower, to name but a few. These various tasks have kept me on my toes throughout my time at DFC as every day I learned something new.

I was encouraged and felt able to freely present, discuss and exchange my ideas about project work to my colleagues and it has enabled me to take projects into a certain direction as appropriate. For example, I wanted to incorporate macros written in VBA into evacuation calculation spreadsheets to make them more user friendly and the team was more than welcome for my input. Furthermore, once completing a task I felt that my work was appreciated and I made a productive contribution to the team.

To put everything together, I had an amazing experience at DFC. It was a pleasure to be around such an incredible and close-knit driven team, I have gained a great amount of knowledge and developed a passion for my work experience here. DFC has left me with a very high expectation on what work should be like.’

Ian’s summer placement experience:

‘My interest in multi-disciplinary engineering has long been an influence in my academic and career goals. It has led me to a degree in Structural Engineering with Architecture, and now, an exciting opportunity for a summer placement with DFC.

I have worked on external fire spread calculations, conducted a desktop-research for an SFE assessment, attended several design teams meeting as well as various sites visit. Yet, in my last few days, I continued to discover new things I wished I had learned earlier.

I was fortunate to join DFC’s summer placement programme as the UK national lockdown was eased and was given the opportunity to gain exposure from meeting senior engineers in-person and being in the office environment. The lunches, the drinks, the dinners and the various catching up with team members in the office has introduced me to the social side of DFC community. I had the chance to share in the funny, the encouraging, the weird, the interesting, and the exciting.

If I had to recall a time when I felt the most inspired, it has to be when I was observing how everyone at DFC were reaching out to each other for questions and advice on different projects. It was an experience I will continue to learn from and reflect upon. Experience will never be a substitute for collaboration and curiosity.

As my time at DFC was coming to an end, I felt that I was fortunate DFC has made me a better collaborator, problem-solver and driven by feedback. I am proud that I was a part of the DFC community and happy to return for a future summer placement.’

If you are interested in joining us for a summer placement, we post these on our careers page in September and typically the window for applications is open until January. Find out more here.