Blog of a Civil Engineering Student on Work Placement in Germany

From September 2017, I undertook a professional work placement as part of the Erasmus+ programme in Germany. The placement took place at the company SBP Gmbh München, which is engaged in construction management, site supervision, preparation of project documentation, production of plans, and interior and exterior architecture.

The company employs 18 people, of whom 15 are engineers in architecture and civil engineering. Currently, there are also 2 work placement students studying civil engineering at the company.

After being accepted into the company, they introduced me to the nature and methods of work in the company, and assigned me to the architect Christian. Christian and I are currently managing quite a few construction sites and construction works. In these, I am involved with project documentation, production of plans, site supervision, approval of construction invoices and costs. Over time, my " mentor in the company" assigned me an increasingly greater role. I have already managed my own project independently from the initial phases right through to project completion.

I carried out the drawing of plans using the Archicad programme, which, thanks to my good prior knowledge of Autocad and increasingly complex plans, I mastered more and more. For monitoring construction site costs, my colleagues and I used the California programme, with which we could compare the costs of individual works from site to site, and thereby had better control of market prices.

So far, through engineering works, I have helped with the reconstruction or renovation of the 6th floor of a renowned hotel in Munich, with the reconstruction of business premises of companies, helped with planning a new restaurant with French cuisine in the centre of Munich with possible solutions, and been involved in supervision and quality acceptance of the renovation of a well-known building. In the mentioned projects, my work included preparation of documentation, site supervision, and approval of construction costs.

Honestly speaking, before starting the work placement abroad, I was a little sceptical about how it would all go, but now at the end I can say that the work placement abroad has truly paid off and been worthwhile for me. I gained new knowledge, insight into how things look abroad, and above all insight into the behind-the-scenes of a construction site, what all the work is needed to carry out a project. The placement was made possible for me by Academia Institute of Technology.

I truly warmly recommend a work placement abroad to all who are thinking about it, as you gain valuable experience through it, which can be very useful to you both in Slovenia and abroad. Jan Kogelnik, student of the Civil Engineering programme at Academia Institute of Technology Maribor

Source: Academia (15. 11. 2017). Fotografije: arhiv Academie.

This English summary was produced automatically from the Slovenian article and is pending editorial review. Slovenska različica