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VEGA Trainee - Travel Diary 2019

Hi!

My name is Anna and I’m a trainee at VEGA Grieshaber KG, located in Schiltach in the Black Forest of Germany. Currently I am doing an apprenticeship as an industrial clerk with an additional qualification in international business management, which contains learning English and Spanish at school.
Due to my apprenticeship I had the possibility to spend six weeks at one of our subsidiaries – VEGA Controls in Burgess Hill. During my time here in the UK I was part of the Marketing and Sales department. Are you interested in my experience, which I collected at work and in my free time? If yes, read the article below and I will give you a short overview.

Working at VEGA Controls

Not only the subsidiary, but also VEGA Grieshaber KG prepared different projects for me to have a small overview of the variety of the tasks from both departments.During my time in the IT department in Schiltach, at the headquarters, I have already worked on a documentation explaining the exhibition tool in our CRM database. The exhibition tool contains editing exhibition reports, defining exhibitions and exhibition statistics. My documentation should be an explanation for all employees all around the world how to work with it and consequently I had to write it in German and English, as well. As I already finished explaining the parts “editing exhibition reports” and “exhibition statistics”, I had to work on the "defining tool" in my first week at the subsidiary.
Travel Diary site visit MINI

Anna at the MINI plant on her site visit

But of course, also my colleagues from VEGA UK prepared a variety of tasks. My main task in the marketing department concerned our Blog. As I have never worked with the program which is used for editing and uploading blogs, I got an introduction into it and afterwards I was responsible for editing several blog articles. It was fun to try out the different functions of the program and to see the results of the layout on the website. After editing a few articles I also had to opportunity to write my own articles after I attended two site visits, one to Shoreham Port in Brighton and also the MINI plant in Oxford, to see how our sensors work in “real life” and what they are able to measure. This was probably the most interesting part of my work here and due to the site visits I also got the possibility to learn more about the applications of them.

In the Sales department I learned how to work with our CRM Database. I was the holiday replacement for one of my colleagues and I was responsible for the invoicing and adding enquiries to the system, which was quite new for me. It was the first time for me being in direct contact with customers, but I also got a detailed explanation of this system as well and as everyone was so friendly and helpful it was no problem for me working on it, because I didn’t need to be afraid of asking questions or asking for help.

How I spent my free time

Travel Diary Bowling

Night out in Brightons' Bowling centre

I had the good fortune to have very friendly and welcoming colleagues at the subsidiary, who tried to integrate me as fast and good as possible and consequently they invited me to their private curry dinner, on which one of the staff member celebrated her birthday, to an amazing musical in London and also to a Bowling night with some of the office staff. It was absolutely fun and I enjoyed spending some of free time with the office staff.
Travel Diary Cambridge

View on the river Cam

Nevertheless I spent most of my free time alone, which I was absolutely fine with. After my work at the office I often made use of the good train connections to Brighton to spend the rest of the day there. Sometimes I just went there for dinner, relaxing and letting the day fade away. But of course I also explored Brighton a lot by foot, went to the seaside and I also did a bit of shopping there. On most weekends I travelled to London to see a friend of mine, who also spent the whole summer in the UK for work experience as she does the same apprenticeship as I do but at another company.  As none of my friends were able to visit me due to the very expensive flights I was really happy to have at least one friend, with whom I spent a lot of time. We always did a bit of sightseeing but as we always explored the city by foot we also explored places, which no tourists join.

On a day off I also travelled to Cambridge as some people recommended to me. I wasn’t disappointed, because what I found out was amazing. I loved exploring the centre of the city with all its colleges and cathedrals, which look very old and completely different to our ones in Germany. As the weather was really good that day I also joined a boat tour on a so called “Stechkahn”, where I could enjoy the view of many old lovely buildings.


My conclusion

To sum up I really enjoyed my summer in Burgess Hill. I learned a lot about the company itself, about our devices and the programs I had to work with. As both programs I mainly worked with were new for me it always kept me busy, so my the time flew very fast – unfortunately too fast. I am very grateful to had the opportunity to learn to know all the employees, who were absolutely welcoming and friendly.
Also my trips to different cities and places made my time here so special and unforgettable. I loved it to explore new places by my own and being independent. Due to my independence I have lost the fear of talking to strangers in a foreign language, about which I am very grateful.
Anna Wöhrle
VEGA Trainee

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