We are a large interdisciplinary International engineering firm. In terms of what I do myself,  I'm an ecologist so I would do wildlife surveys for both large and small infrastructure projects.

AECOM and especially the ecology team in AECOM have got, I think, an absolutely amazing relationship with Queen’s. We always try and get a work placement student during the summers, I was actually one of those work placement students nearly 5 years ago now. It's just a great scheme in terms of being able to talk to students who are still in academia and being able to get fresh new ideas into the team.

I act as a mentor, both for new hires and then also for our placement students. The role is there to both introduce people to the world of ecology and be there as someone they can talk to and ask questions. Also to help people transition more into the world of work. It can be very difficult for students or even new hires to come into such a large corporation.

My advice for anyone going on placement would just be to kind of throw yourself into it, give it your all. At the end of the day you're in there for a short period of time and I think you should try and get the most out of it for yourself and try and give your placement company the most out of it as well.

Paul Donaghey

Ecologist, AECOM

MSc Ecological Management and Conservation Biology graduate

 

I'm an ecological assistant for the ecology team which means I take on reports. I do health and safety plans prior to going out on site, I carry out loads of different surveys from butterflies to bats to badgers - anything wildlife related.

Whenever you go out and survey obviously there's loads of equipment involved so you'd have your iPad which you take all your survey notes. We would use QGIS so it's mapping all of your different key points of what happens and what you've come across. We do a lot of bat surveys so that would include using IR cameras and thermal cameras and setting up tripods and then using a bat logger which would record any bat's presence within the area,  then analysing that data that we collect and that would be kind of your daily routine during the summer months. During the winter months it might be a little bit quieter where you would be more at a desk doing a lot of desk studies.

Obviously at the start it was very daunting coming into a big corporate job into these big offices but I've definitely settled in really well and everyone's very positive and very encouraging.

Anyone looking long-term goals I would definitely recommend a placement. It's so much easier to get a taste of it and then it also gives you the opportunity to be like oh is this actually what I want to do long term. The good thing also with AECOM is they provide International opportunities, so just because you start in Belfast doesn't mean there's not opportunity to expand. One of my favourite moments was in June I got to go to Scotland which was quite a nice treat. It was a water vole and otter survey so it was out in really good heat and the Scottish team was fabulous. It was quite nice to expand your network.

A bit of advice - don't be stressed and  you will get sorted. I was very late to the game, I thought that I wasn't going to get a placement and then in February I got the phone call from Dionne being like ‘you've gotten a placement,’ so don't stress if you don't have one yet. I know people even at the end of June who only got sorted, so the main thing is don't stress and do put yourself out there and take the most out of it, do everything, be like yeah I can do that, don't say no!

Ellen McGeough

BSc Zoology