My name is Andi Gruianu, and I’m currently studying BEng (Hons) Civil Engineering at Birmingham City University. Having just finished my first year with a First Class average, I was looking for an opportunity to see how the theory I’d been learning actually plays out on real infrastructure projects. My placement with South West Flood & Coastal, working client-side with BCP Council’s team, gave me exactly that, and it shaped a lot of how I now think about my career in engineering.

Much of my time was spent split between the office and out on site. I got involved early on in surveying work using Trimble and Leica equipment, taking survey points and helping monitor coastal assets along the shoreline. I hadn’t used equipment like this before, so learning to set it up properly and understand what the data actually meant to an engineer trying to track change over time was a steep but rewarding learning curve.

A big part of the placement was geotechnical fieldwork. I took part in cliff inspections, looking at tension cracks, drainage patterns, rock types and surface conditions, and started to understand how engineers use that information to judge stability and decide when and where intervention is needed. It gave me a much better appreciation of how much judgement, not just measurement, goes into geotechnical assessment.

One of the standout parts of the placement was getting out to the Poole Bridge to Hunger Hill Flood Defence Scheme, a £29.4 million tidal flood defence project. Seeing a scheme of that scale under construction, and understanding the sequencing, logistics and coordination it takes to deliver it, was genuinely eye-opening. I also sat in on meetings involving the council and a wide range of stakeholders, which gave me a real sense of how much coordination happens between different parties before and during delivery.

I was also introduced to NEC4 contract administration, which I hadn’t studied yet at university. Seeing how contracts are actually managed day to day, rather than just reading about the framework, made the subject click in a way lectures hadn’t. Alongside this, I used GIS and mapping tools to help record and assess coastal infrastructure and assets, which tied together a lot of the surveying and inspection work I’d been doing.

What struck me most was just how multidisciplinary this kind of work is. I went in expecting mostly technical, calculation-based engineering, and came out with a much broader picture, one where communication, contract management, environmental considerations and stakeholder coordination are just as central to delivering a successful scheme as the technical design itself.

This placement has strengthened my interest in infrastructure delivery, coastal engineering and project management, and given me a clearer sense of the kind of career I want to build. I’m grateful to the whole team at South West Flood & Coastal for being so willing to explain their work and answer my questions, and I’d recommend this placement to any student wanting to properly understand what civil engineering looks like in practice.

Andi Gruianu
Second year BEng (Hons) Civil Engineering at BCU