September 7, 2023, by Rebekah

Placement with Integrated Transport Planning (ITP)

I am Beth Fowler, a second year Geography student and have recently completed a ten-week placement at Integrated Transport Planning (ITP). ITP is a transport planning consultancy, which means that they solve transport related issues for clients, such as planning and altering bus routes. I worked as an intern, summarising case studies and presenting them in a template to give the company a cohesive set of best-case examples for them to use in future projects and to present to clients. I will be returning to ITP this summer as part of a paid internship.

I found the placement through the Nottingham Advantage Award. The application consisted of answering two questions with a 500-word limit and completed the interview over Teams. This was intimidating but the university provided plenty of helpful resources and guidance which made this much easier. I would recommend that you do plenty of research on the company and industry so you are prepared for any questions that they might ask you and to also try and prepare some answers to basic interview question that they are likely to ask.

My role within the company meant that I was tasked with compiling all the company’s research on numerous case studies into one database and then creating a template in order to display each case study, highlighting the factors that were important to ITP. I also grouped several similar case studies together to highlight the importance of particular variables and displayed this as an infographic. Learning more about how information is presented in a professional manner was important and I also enjoyed learning about the locations that I researched.

Another task that I completed during the internship was a presentation. During my last week, I presented to the office about what my task had involved and what I had learnt by being there. This was initially a daunting task but gave me the opportunity to reflect on what I had learnt, both about the work that I had completed but also about the industry and the opportunities that the placement had given me. This was a really valuable experience and has immensely grown my confidence in public speaking, especially to those who I am not particularly familiar with.

For anyone interested in a similar placement, I would recommend that you apply for as many opportunities as you can that would be relevant to you and to not be put off by rejections. I applied for a placement prior to this and was rejected so just keep trying! Whilst on placement, I would suggest that you try and talk to as many people as you can to find out about other projects and parts of the business and don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.

“We were all incredibly impressed with Beth Fowler’s work ethic, standard of outputs, presentation skills and general intellect/insight. So much so that we have offered her a paid position over the summer holiday and potentially future holidays!” – Nicola Siddall, (Beth’s Placement Supervisor and Transport Planner – ITP Nottingham)

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