One Year On…!

It’s hard to believe that it has been almost a year since I finished my Civil Aerospace internship with Rolls-Royce. Adjusting back into university life after such an exciting summer was strange – especially after being lucky enough to spend parts of the previous year in Canada for study abroad and in Beijing for my internship – but I threw myself into my work, determined to get the grades I needed for my degree. I was also awarded an Athena Swan ‘Woman of Achievement’ award in October, which was a big surprise but an even bigger honour, and set my fourth and final year of undergraduate life off to a great start.

My official ‘Woman of Achievement’ Portrait

 

Luckily, the hard work paid off: last week I graduated from the University of Leeds with First Class Honours, and was absolutely over the moon! The English Literature dissertation that I spent the last year writing, which was about representations of non-conventional masculinity in twentieth-century war literature, was awarded a high first-class mark, and another extended essay that I’d written in the final semester was given an even higher first-class mark. My graduation day was a really lovely experience, made even better by my proud family being there to celebrate it with me.

My brother, Joe, and me at my graduation

It’s a bit scary to think that I’ve finished with undergraduate life and with Leeds, both as a city and a university. I’ve learnt and experienced so much; I wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for the last four years. But I’m ready now to start this new part of my life as a working (salaried!) adult. My first graduate placement at Rolls-Royce, in the Defence sector in Bristol, commences in September, and I can’t wait to get started. I’m sure it’s going to be a challenge – it wouldn’t be worth it if it wasn’t – but if my internship is anything to go by, I can look forward to learning an immense amount about a whole variety of business and engineering-related subjects – and that’s probably just the tip of the iceberg!

Week Ten

I spent the first few days of my final week at Rolls-Royce in Haikou, a city in the Southern island province of Hainan. It’s known as China’s answer to Hawaii and it certainly was a fascinating place. With its palm-lined seafront roads stretching out for miles, it was a world away from the cosmopolitan buzz of Beijing. We were in Hainan for a review meeting with one of the Greater China team’s customers. It was a very different business environment to anything I have experienced so far, and I listened and helped out as our team presented to the airline’s senior figures. Apart from a slight technological blip, it went really well, and we rounded off the trip with a fantastic team dinner at a rooftop restaurant watching the sun set over the sea. It’s a hard life!

I flew back to England mid-week via Beijing. My flight was delayed by almost 24 hours, but I used the negotiation skills that I’ve learnt over the course of my internship to convince the airline to put me on an earlier flight so that I wouldn’t miss my final day at Rolls-Royce! It was a long time to be travelling for, and after getting back to Derby on Thursday evening, I got a taste of the realities of Customer Business – going into work the next morning at 6.30 so that I could finish off my projects, with jet lag and on only a few hours sleep! Suffice to say my last day was very hectic; I had to tie up all my projects as well as doing my end of attachment presentation and final review. Come mid-morning I was struggling a little, but a lovely goodbye lunch thrown by our team for me and the two other interns who were leaving was just what I needed to revive me. Until that point I hadn’t really had time to think about leaving, and it made me feel really lucky that I had been placed in such a brilliant team. My time at Rolls has been such a laugh, a lot of hard work, a brilliant learning experience, exhausting, exhilarating and significantly out of my comfort zone at times. I’ve had to work really hard, but it was worth it in every way, and my three weeks in China were the perfect way to end an already fantastic experience.

But the turning point for me came on the Friday morning when I was completing my end of attachment presentation. I have been hearing about the Rolls-Royce graduate programme since week one, and to be perfectly honest, my initial reaction was that although it sounds great, it wasn’t really for me. But putting my presentation together made me think that I’ve really come to be impassioned by the work I have been doing. I never thought I would say this, but I’m excited about engines now. And I never in a million years thought I would say this either, but I can really see myself working in a business environment like at Rolls-Royce. And it is with that message in mind that I can proudly sign off my blog with the great news that I have formally accepted the offer of a place the Rolls-Royce Customer Management Graduate Scheme 2014. I have just started back at university for my final year, but it is all sorted for me to be returning to Rolls next September. Who knows where it will take me, but I am ready and willing to jump at every opportunity and challenge that will doubtless come my way.

Week Nine

I think it is fair to say that this last week has not only been the best week of my internship, it has been one of the best experiences of my life.

On Tuesday, we held the 50/30 Event. It was the main focus of my visit and I think everyone was quite nervous because it was the culmination of months of hard work and planning.

I had been asked to help with the presentation of commemorative glass blocks to the panel speakers on stage. To say I was anxious would be an understatement, especially considering that I had to hand one of the blocks to the Rolls-Royce Chief Executive, John Rishton, and I really didn’t want to embarrass myself! Luckily, the presentation went well, the guests really appreciated the event and I had a lot of fun at the reception befriending the effervescent Chinese TV news anchor and UN ambassador James Chau. The event agency even had me taking polaroid photos of the guest as souvenirs, which went down really well!

On Thursday, I spent a day at the Beijing airport Field Service Office. Harold, one of the Field Service Officers, took me on a tour of the engine repair shop and I had some fantastically hands-on demonstrations. I was then taken to the airport hangar. I never realised how enthused I could be by planes, but getting to sit in the pilot seats of a Boeing 747 and a Boeing 737 was a brilliant experience. It was also quite eerie – one aircraft had been entirely gutted of seats, and they all lay beside it in a very ghostly way. But it was incredible to really get a feel for how enormous some of these aircraft are – it felt like being in a sci-fi film, walking between these enormous planes while next to us, a steady stream of aircraft took off from the Beijing runway.

Friday was an even more exciting day because I was given a tour of the Airbus training facility and was phenomenally lucky in being allowed to fly in a simulator! It was a huge pod that was created to exactly replicate flight – everything from the smorgasbord of cockpit controls to the view from the windscreen to the movements and turbulence of the aircraft. Pumped with adrenaline, I had a pretty successful take-off (even if I do say so myself) and my flight wasn’t too bad, even though I was told off for speeding. My landing, however, was testament to the realistic nature of the simulator – there were a few screams when I accidentally crash landed into the runway!

I’ve also continued to have a brilliant time in terms of cultural experiences, trying new food (jellyfish was an interesting one) and getting to know the team. It’s been fascinating seeing more of the Chinese culture too – when one of my colleagues got stuck in a lift, the building bought him a massive gift basket filled with fruit as an apology, which is something you would be unlikely to see in England! I’m still being treated fantastically, and on Wednesday my colleague Tricia took me on a bike tour of the Hutongs – the old streets of Beijing -and it was amazing to see a different, more authentic side to the city. Even late at night, there is this fantastic energy everywhere, and I was genuinely sad to say goodbye to the office on Friday ahead of the upcoming trip to Hainan.

Week Eight (China!)

I’ve been in Beijing for a week now and so far I absolutely love everything about it! As you would imagine, the culture is very different and not at all what I expected. It seems to be the little things, like door locks turning the opposite way, that confuse me the most, but I am settling in pretty well.

The Rolls-Royce office is situated in the heart of the Central Business District and it’s a big change for me – you only have to compare the 35 or so employees in the Beijing office to the thousands in Derby to understand the scale of the difference! All my colleagues here are absolutely brilliant, and I have been for a string of fantastic meals since I arrived. I never realised just how many Chinese cuisines there are (I’ve been told thirty-six?) and I’m having a brilliant time discovering them all.

So much has happened in the last week that I could never put it all in one blog post, so I should probably focus on my work! I have been assigned to help with the 50/30 celebration, which is an event comprised of an Innovation Forum followed by an anniversary reception to commemorate 50 years of Rolls-Royce engines in China and 30 years of Rolls-Royce having a presence in China.

My English skills have come into their own as I have been helping to write media pieces and interviews as well as helping with the actual planning and preparation of the event. On Friday we did a check of the venue to make sure everything is on track – it’s a prestigious event with some of the most important Chinese customers attending so we have to make sure everything is perfect! As a result I have been learning a lot about the history of Rolls-Royce’s partnership with China. I’ve also had a chance to learn about some activities outside the Civil Aerospace business, so I’m continuing to learn a lot about how Rolls-Royce operates more generally.

It’s not all been work though – as I mentioned, I’ve been to some brilliant places; I cycled to Tiananmen Square (quite a feat with the drivers here) and had a go at haggling in Yashow market. I also spent the weekend being a typical tourist at the Great Wall of China and the Summer Palace. They were fantastic and the scale of both was awe-inspiring, although I had a close shave when an enormous snake launched itself at my face on the walk up to the Great Wall!

I could talk forever about the kindness and hospitality of everyone I have met in Beijing, the incredible flavours of the food, the buzzing vibe of the city and the excitement of my work. All in all it has been a brilliant week and I am really excited for the opportunities and challenges that will doubtless be thrown at me over the next week!

Week Seven

So this is it – as quickly as my internship started, my final full week in Derby has come to an end! It’s been a bit hectic trying to get all my travel prep finished and all the loose ends tied up before I go, and it’s been made all the more difficult due a shoulder injury that put me in a sling. Nothing dramatic or heroic unfortunately – according to the doctor, sometimes ligaments or tendons “just tear”.

It doesn’t really feel like I’ve finished in Derby – and to be fair I do have one last day back in the Derby office at the very end of my internship, so it wasn’t really goodbye. I am really lucky to have met some amazing people here and had such challenging but brilliant experiences. Derby has come to feel like a second home, which is something I never thought I’d say. I was actually quite sad and sentimental when saying goodbye!

I spent my week trying to finish off all my objectives. I didn’t quite manage to get everything done, but the majority of my work is now complete, and with just a bit of work while I am in China I think I will be on top of getting everything sorted and complete to a level that I, and my manager Larissa,  are happy with.

I’ve had a few meetings with the rest of the intern team to make sure everyone knows what they are doing for our Customer Business Open Day project while I’m gone. Anna, another Customer Management intern, has been doing some great video work for the project, and I’ve been helping her out with it. I’ve been really impressed with the results and with Anna’s ability to get us access to filming equipment! The whole project is really taking shape and I’m excited to see the finished prototype.

My Excel saga has also almost come to an end. I reckon there is an hour or two more work to do on my internal process improvement objective, and then I can stop ranting to anyone unfortunate enough to get in my way about my love-hate relationship with Excel. 

I fly on Sunday and I will try my best to keep posting updates from China. It’s really exciting and I feel very lucky to have the chance to see Rolls-Royce’s operations in another country, especially a country that is so culturally different to England. I’m going to get the chance see how a Field Service Office at the airport works, so it is great that I’ll be able to see the practical side of some of what I’ve been working on in Derby.

Wish me luck (although it would seem I already have enough of it!)

Week Six

For the first time, I actually feel on top of my objectives. I’ve still got a lot of hard work to do, but it feels like I will manage everything before I leave for Beijing. One of my remaining objectives involves gathering interesting facts about our customers to be presented on internal displays. It’s part of the Rolls-Royce-wide focus on understanding our customers and putting them at the heart of everything that we do, and it’s a really good chance for me to make use of my creative skills.

My next objective is the same internal process improvement project that I have mentioned a few times previously – Excel and I are friends again, but I have been boring my flatmates half to death with my never-ending Excel monologue so perhaps the less said about that objective, the better.

My final objective concerns the Customer Business workshop. We had a few hiccups early in the week regarding some mass confusion about terminology, but it’s all been smoothed over now thanks to the very sharp team of interns helping me! The “vision” behind the workshop has also been dramatically overhauled but it’s really starting to take shape. There was a funny moment in a meeting when someone discovered that the acronym I have been using to refer to the workshop (Rolls-Royce loves acronyms) sounds like “seabass”. There is a general sense of good humour throughout the office which I really like!

Finally, I spent a bit of time with Heather McVicar and Natalie Sigona, who both work in Diversity and Inclusion. I first met Natalie and Heather at my assessment centre, and their jobs sounded really interesting. So it was great to catch up and hear about the work they are doing and the challenges they face, and they even suggested that I could get involved with some of the Diversity and Inclusion initiatives as a way to help work towards a more inclusive workforce here. I think that this is a really positive step following on from my thoughts two weeks ago about women in business and something I’m really excited about getting involved in.

So what now? I have a meeting next week to discuss the Rolls-Royce graduate programme. It’s weird to already be thinking about finishing uni, but it’s also very exciting. I guess we’ll see..!

Week Five

So I have reached the halfway point, and I’m continuing to get stuck in to whatever Rolls-Royce throws at me!  At the beginning of the week, I had a follow-up Trent XWB tour from the eternally helpful Andy Knox. The engine is looking a lot more like what I would have expected it to look before I started at Rolls-Royce. The shiny new fan blades are in place, and Andy gave me a run-down of the challenges to come in the final leg. I also saw two separate parts of a new engine – it’s very cool to see how these massive pieces will slot together to make a dauntingly powerful machine.

The main focus of my week has been continuing with my projects. Last week’s eureka moment on Excel was somewhat dampened by all my formulae becoming corrupted, but a new Excel discovery was made in its place, and I am back on track. I’ve also been getting to grips with creating my Customer Business workshop and trying to convince others to help me out with it – I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how helpful certain individuals have been!

I also had a couple of meetings with Robert Nightingale, Senior Finance Business Partner – Western Region. I met Robert when I was shadowing Jacqui Sutton, when he very usefully explained some finance terminology for me (I’m learning!). This week, he arranged to see some of us interns to explain how Accounting and Forecasting work within Customer Business. I learnt loads and it was fascinating for me to find out about aviation industry regulations on how long planes can fly with only one engine. But although I did my best to get my head around how Robert and his colleagues model financial risk, I think I will stick to Customer Management!

My week finished off with an encouraging Personal Development meeting with my manager Larissa to see how I am progressing. In the last few days, Larissa has been heavily involved in a new, important piece of work so that has given me the opportunity to be really independent. I’m now focussing on taking Larissa’s comments and applying them to my projects so that they can be the absolute best that they can be.

Week Four

I have no idea how four weeks have passed already and even less idea how I will manage to finish all my work in three! As well as continuing to improve internal processes – which has been made a lot easier by an exciting excel discovery (words I never thought I’d say) –  I have been tasked with the challenge of creating a Customer Business workshop. It will give me the chance to lead the creation of a comprehensive programme that can be implemented across Rolls-Royce once I leave.

As part of my prize for winning the Female Undergraduate of the Year Award, I have also spent some time shadowing Jacqueline Sutton, Senior Vice President of Customer Business West. Although I was overwhelmed by the plethora of complex information that Jacqui is expected to listen to, understand and then make decisions about throughout the day, I was really impressed with how she keeps on top of the important customer issues. I think being able to focus on the things that will make a difference to the business and the customer is a really important skill to learn. It has also been very refreshing to shadow a Senior Vice President who has a sense of humour, and yet commands authority as part of a mutually-respectful team.

I also found it really useful to see how Jacqui was involved in one of the processes that I am trying to improve – being able to see how it works (and more usefully when it doesn’t work) really shed some light on how I can improve the templates I’m working on.

I was also pleased to see that there was nothing marked about Jacqui being female. With the news currently focusing on the existence of a “glass ceiling” for women in the workplace, it is fantastic to see Jacqui being so unapologetically successful irrespective of being a woman. I’ve had a similar experience here; everyone in my immediate team treats me with respect, and the fact that I am a woman is neither here nor there.  Outside of work, I have regularly encountered sexist behaviour and have done since I was little – everyday sexism is unacceptable, but it no longer shocks me. However, it is not something that I would expect to experience in the workplace. Although I have largely been very impressed by the attitudes of Rolls-Royce employees, I still think that big businesses in general need to work harder at eradicating certain behaviours. But I’m confident that if women like Jacqui continue to excel, things will continue to improve. I know that the Rolls-Royce Diversity and Inclusion division are pioneering some powerful initiatives and I really look forward to seeing these initiatives come to fruition. It’s a long road, but hopefully I, and other women, can use our professional successes – wherever we are working – to continue to contribute to a widespread change in attitude and to break that glass ceiling.

Well, I had better get back to work on my templates now– time waits for no intern!

Third week…

This week I have been hard at work trying to re-configure and streamline some internal processes. This includes creating contract maps of aftermarket services that my team are managing, as well as looking at the objectives I will need to cover over my next few weeks at Rolls-Royce. To be honest, I’m a bit stunned that my third week is already over – it won’t be long until I go to China in August for a 2 – 3 week business trip as part of my prize!

On Tuesday I was lucky enough to be afforded a privileged insight into the Trent XWB Pre-Production shop in Aero Repair and Overhaul (AR&O). Andy Knox, Head of Pre-Production  – Operations, working on the XWB engine, gave me a great tour and there were a couple of things that, as a non-mechanical engineer, really struck me. First is the sheer enormity of a modern plane engine. The Trent XWB is particularly large, but even in my experiences of flying, I have never stopped to really look at how massive the engines are on a plane. In my family, we have a tendency to measure the size of things by whether my exceedingly tall twin brother, Joe, can fit inside them. I can safely tell you that there is plenty of space inside a Trent XWB for many Joes!

I was also struck by the complexity of an engine and the steps that go into the production and assembly of parts in order to create a working engine. Of course I already knew that an engine is very, very complicated but I think it takes being able to have a close look at all the pipes and parts in order to really appreciate the intricacy of every piece.  It’s also interesting, and reassuring, to hear how much is done when things don’t quite function as they are supposed to. The pre-production process struck me as highly reactive, constantly evolving to fit needs, and it’s really interesting to compare how things are being done on this new-build engine compared to engines in the past.

I’ve also been spending some time sitting in on meetings with my manager, Larissa, to see how she is planning and managing a visit for the end of the week from one of our Greater China customers. It’s a task that is a lot more Customer-Management focussed, whereas up until now I have been getting a much broader overview of the whole Civil Large Engines division, the products we deal with and the technical management side. I’m starting to feel a lot more settled in the team too – luckily there’s been a lot less of the initial embarrassing hiccups of inadvertently stealing someone’s chair and sending emails to the wrong people!

My Second Week…

Once again, I’m pleased to say that I survived the week!  The early mornings are starting to feel normal, the many acronyms at Rolls-Royce have become second nature and I’m getting through around one thousand cups of tea a day. If you’d told me at this point last year that I’d find engines so interesting I would not have believed you!

It’s been a little less hectic than last week (famous last words) and I think that comes down to how much I’m learning.  That certainly wouldn’t be the case without the help of my whole team, especially my brilliant manager Larissa who consistently goes above and beyond to help me when I feel out of my depth. In the last few days I’ve been drafting invoices and analysing engine data, which relies on me having some in-depth knowledge of the customers, policies and pricing methods of Customer Business, so I’ve needed a fair bit of help from lots of different people. I’m also managing my own time and projects, so it’s both exciting and daunting to have so much responsibility over my work.

But before I got here, I had been worrying: what can an English Literature student like me really bring to Rolls-Royce? Universities are always telling us about the unique value of an Arts degree, and of course there is truth in what they say about transferrable skills and analytical skills being an asset to any workplace. But sometimes it’s hard for me to not to be concerned whether my degree discipline will set me up for a successful career, or if I’ve made a potentially career-limiting choice.

Yet so far in my experience here at Rolls-Royce, I’ve come across people with all manner of Arts degrees and none of them have been restricted by their degree discipline. In fact, within a company where the emphasis is on engineering, it is useful to get some outside perspectives.

Customer Business as a function relies on the sort of skills that you gain and develop while undertaking an Arts degree, and my feeling is that being able to engage with customers is made a lot easier by having the experience of an Arts degree. My studies have also taught me to challenge things I hear and see, to think originally and creatively and to learn quickly – all invaluable business skills – even if after a more technically-oriented meeting, I often feel like my head might explode!

A lot of my upcoming internship projects will be focused on innovating and improving existing Customer Business processes as well as implementing new training packages for Rolls-Royce and I’m hoping that my Arts-based skills will be an asset in helping me come up with some genuinely exciting initiatives!