Joshua's College Work Experience at Ford Dunton

Last week Joshua completed 1 week of work experience for his college course and since he is studying engineering I managed to secure him a position in the tool room in the Ford Dunton Fleet Workshop. This was such a great opportunity for Josh to experience a real engineering center and to learn some new skills. Over the course of the week he got to do some sheet metal fabrication and they also taught him how to weld. In fact one of his tasks was to make a name plate where the name had to be written in weld material.

I also had the opportunity to drive Joshua around the high speed track in an all electric MS-RT Transit. He was pretty impressed at us doing almost 80kph on a banked corner and then experiencing the acceleration of an electric vehicle on the straights. We had one minor incident on one of the banked corners where a flock of pigeons were camped out on the track and had to make a quick exit as I came around the corner. Most of the flock cleared the vehicle, but one unlucky bird just clipped the windscreen! 

I really enjoyed taking Joshua to work with me and spending some quality time with him last week, in fact I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it this week. We managed to meet up for breakfast in the canteen each day and then we met again for lunch which we usually followed up with a walk where I would show him different parts of the site. He had no idea how big the facility was as all you see from the main road is the front offices and none of the labs, workshops and test facilities behind the office blocks.

Joshua seemed to really enjoy the week and it has made him realise that there is a difference between working in something you enjoy as opposed to having a mundane, repetitive job. To date his only work experience is his part time job at Tesco and that has him doing exactly the same thing day-in and day-out. Even he admitted that a 7-8 shift at Tesco seemed 2-3 times longer than a full day at Dunton because the work at Dunton is more varied and interesting.

Day 1 and Joshua joins me at Dunton to start a week of work experience.

Over the course of the week they taught him how to weld and one of his projects was to make a name plate.