Dearbhla Laverty, Aerospace Engineering student from Queens University Belfast in Northern Ireland, gains invaluable industry experience thanks to a placement year at Caterpillar.

"I have learned many new skills and recognised many hidden abilities and talents within myself that I would not have seen without my placement year,” said Dearbhla.

A friendly working environment

“When I came to Caterpillar I was both nervous and excited about starting my first year in the working world,” explained Dearbhla who started in Caterpillar's Master Data Support Team in Northern Ireland. She was welcomed warmly by everyone in her team and had no problems asking for help with day to day tasks. Dearbhla was also given the option of flexible working which was impressive.

An in-depth industry experience

In her year-long placement, Dearbhla was able to work in different departments such as Purchasing and Supply Chain, Manufacturing and Product Validation Services. Here she could apply her current knowledge and develop new skills such as communication, organisation and time-management.

She also gained a huge amount of appreciation on how the business works and how the product grows from birth to after-market.

Working on new projects

Dearbhla was involved in many different projects during her placement year at Caterpillar. Her main project developed training for an upcoming software change throughout the enterprise.

“I was asked to create a training document for this new software and presented it in a training week with engineers from America. This new software will be used across the Caterpillar globally and will benefit the company greatly,” she added.

Dearbhla has thoroughly enjoyed and cherished her time with Caterpillar - maybe you will too! 

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