UKC

I'm a 2nd year (of 4) Mechanical Engineering student, looking for a summer placement which hopefully will be climbing related, and could even make them love me enough to give me a job after all the pain

I have been looking at a load of the indoor walls designers/builders, and they seem to do really interesting things, lots of CAD and such, and appear to be a really interesting sort of job. I've been trawling through the internet, and have come up with a whole range of places I could apply.

Also interested in Gear design, so also going to apply to DMM and Wild Country, but I guess there are always people going for those jobs :P

Probably should have started applying earlier too! well, here goes nothing I guess. Any advice or ideas of where I could go would be really welcome!

In reply to Ed Navigante:

Ask yourself the following questions:

i. Do I want to work for a climbing related company (wall building / gear design etc.)

or

ii. Do I want to work for an engineering company in a convenient place for climbing?

If the latter you should find plenty of engineering companies around good climbing locations. Leeds / Sheffield / Manchester spring to mind immediately.

In reply to Ed Navigante:
Always worth still trying DMM and WIld country, I'm sure they get inundated but maybe you have skills useful to them, ideas fresh eyes?

DMM advertised I think last year for a one year placement. WOuld be a great place to work. ALso consider Hope, make cycle components, high end CNC work, or perhaps a company CNCing components, to get an industrial experience with this would stand you in good sted even if its not an area like climbing that your interested in. These skills aren't as far as I know taught to a high level on uni courses, particuarly work holding fixture design and making etc

Good luck with it.

In reply to Ian Broome: also injection mould maufacturing and design is also a useful area to pursue?

If you go down the CNC route you're going to be stuck in a factory all day. Even if you are making climbing equipment it is still the same as machining any other components. It is fantastic engineering experience (I worked in a metal workshop when I was a student) but not really aligned to climbing.

After graduating in Physics and Mathematics I went to work as a telecoms rigger; Lots of climbing (albeit of the ladder variety), Lots of training (safety processes, resues, knots & ropework etc...), great mechanical engineering experience (assembling the steelwork that will sit on the towers) and the technical/science side is also very interesting (Radio comms, microwave hops etc..). It sounds like you'd find this work interesting.

That job steered me into the telecoms industry where I'm now chained to a desk as a junior planner. Apparently, I am overqualified to go back into rigging but I say b******s to them, do what you enjoy!

In reply to Ed Navigante: you could try rope access maybe