Vac Work Finished

Hi all,

I have now come to the end of my Vac work experience with CRL, and now i'm back to uni this week. I thought id just go over some of the benefits i have found with doing vacation work in general as a 1st year, and with CRL specifically.

With 1st year engineering being so general, after studying a year of mechanical engineering its fair to say i know very little about mechanical engineering! With that in mind, vacation work as a 1st year is a good chance to get a proper taste for the mining and resources industry, which I think differs to vacation work as a 3rd year student for instance where the experience is more about actually practicing as an engineer. For that reason it is a big investment for a company to employ a first year, seeing as their technical knowledge is limited.

However this does not mean a 1st year can't have an extremely worthwhile experience as a Vac student. My experience has been fairly hands on, which i think is beneficial to anyone pursuing a career in engineering. I feel as though there is a lot to learn outside the classroom, and can only be learned actually on the tools. For me, learning from a practical point of view is not only more insightful, but a lot more interesting too! For instance, before i undertook Vac work with CRL, i had only a vague idea of how a pump worked. But at work i got to take them apart and see inside them, as well as actually stand inside one (pictures to come...)!

So overall I would recommend to any first year to try to find Vac work - for me it has been an excellent experience. Working at CRL specicifically, i was able to work in a few different areas around the mine. This gave me a taste for more than one area, which now means that i can walk away reassured that the mechanical field is where i want to be. It also gave me a good oversight into how a sand mine, and a mine in general, operates. From what i have seen in my 3 months working for CRL, i would definitely consider sand mining as a career. As i said though, Vac work is a good experience, and i would recommend CRL specifically for vac work.

It wasn't all hard work though! I had some holiday as well, where i was just hanging out with mates, surfing and going out. I will post photos in the next few days hopefully - as soon as i get them on my computer..... stay posted.