Diego Granero Marana MEng Mechanical Engineering, 2019

Current Student

I used my knowledge of engineering every day on my placement when I talked to the specialists who have developed the latest Bentley models. I’ve also developed workplace skills that will be valuable in my career.

Why did you choose to come to the University of Southampton?

My parents are Spanish and I grew up in Belgium. With my international background, I was always keen to study abroad and coming to the UK was my first choice as I wanted to improve my English. I decided on Southampton because of its reputation for the subject, its position in the rankings and the opportunity to do a placement during my degree.

Why study engineering?

Science was always my favourite subject at school and I took part in engineering projects during my teenage years. It’s a hands-on subject, you’re not just sitting in a lecture theatre and taking notes. I already had a basic knowledge of programming languages such as Python and was impressed that programming was taught in the first year of the course.

What have been the highlights of your degree so far?

You start off by learning all the principles of engineering in the first year, then go on to apply them to real-life problems. The highlight of my second year was taking part in an international challenge to build and manipulate your own robot. Eurobot was a fantastic opportunity and helped me understand how all my engineering skills fit together.

Tell us more about your placement?

I worked at the luxury car company Bentley Motors in Cheshire in their sales and marketing department, producing training material for Bentley technicians worldwide. When a new model is released, the company trains technicians from the dealerships, and I compiled the information they need in the manuals. This included writing training courses on the different systems used in Bentley vehicles and the repair methods they should use.

I was also in charge of administering and developing a system to track the competencies of the technicians in the dealerships to find out if any needed training in certain areas such as electrics, and spent time with the Robotics team on the production line to gain experience of more technical work.

What did you learn during your placement?

Working at a company is very different from studying. I enjoyed meeting the professionals who are focused on delivering great cars at Bentley and didn’t expect staff in such a big company to be so friendly and approachable. I learned a lot about working with a deadline, working in a team, and being able to judge my own work. As a person I have become much more organised, both in work and outside of it.

Bentley is a small fish in a pond of big fish. As part of the large VW group, you meet many undergraduates coming from other brands such as Bugatti, Audi and Porsche. Bentley’s smaller size means you can quickly get to know entire departments and networks easily.

I used my knowledge of engineering every day when I talked to the specialists who had developed the latest Bentley models. This meant I could communicate with them in their own language. I also developed workplace skills that will be valuable in my career, especially in time management and project planning.

What do you want to do when you graduate and has your placement affected your plans?

I am hoping to get into the field of robotics and robotics software engineering. My placement has defined more clearly what I want to do with my career as I learnt a lot about my own likes and dislikes.

I met some amazing engineers at Bentley who were barely older than me and were experts in their field. They have given me a clear reference to shoot for.

What advice would you give students considering a placement?

For the first few weeks, you’ll feel as if you’ve been thrown in the deep end and your brain will be in overdrive but you’ll soon feel at home.

You will come out of your placement with so much knowledge and experience and a real understanding of how industry works. You’ll get to meet the people in charge and the field workers and see how they work together. You will deliver projects at a pace you wouldn’t have thought you were capable of, and you’ll make friends with your colleagues and know you’ll miss them when you go back to university to finish your degree.