Software Engineer Review

Placement/Internship was great. Gives you a great insight to exactly how large companies operate and what you're likely to experience when you leave university. You pick up a great set of skills that are hard to find without industry experience.

I felt like a real member of the team. From the get go people are reliant on you to finish tasks quickly and adequately to help your team move forward on projects. Having skills fresh from university means you're up-to-date and this is helpful for slightly older, out of practice members of the team to see a new youthful insight into things.

My line manager set me my tasks, and was extremely busy so would meet me maybe a couple of times a week including a weekly meeting. For the rest of the week I was left with my project and was given a real open opportunity to give the project my own touches and make it my own, making my own choices as long as they could be explained to my managers with a number of points to back it up. There were also many other employee's who gave great support and were very happy to help new motivated members of the workforce.

Due to myself being given a large project, the workload varied. Some days would be very hectic and busy due to large pieces of work needing to be done for other people to move forward with their tasks. Other days it would feel as if there isn't a lot to do, although there is always work to do and your managers will make sure of this.

A great level of responsibility was placed upon me, as I was given my own international project to work on and try to complete with deadlines and a great number of requirements to meet.

I'm yet to find out, but I assume these skills that I have learnt will help towards my degree as I now have a real work place experience of tasks we complete at university. Also, these skills will help you to further your career in your chosen industry.

The atmosphere varies dependent on your team, your building and everyone's current workload. In times of large series company change the office atmosphere can become slightly less friendly, but on a day to day basis everyone is very happy to be at work surprisingly and very helpful and chatty to an extent where work is still done within deadlines. Also, the area of your desk makes a large difference, as I was given a number of desks at the beginning of my placement and the atmosphere can be quite serious with some employees, but very up-beat and fun with others. Some employees are very self-motivated and involved in volunteering tasks which makes them a lot of fun to be around making day-to-day tasks more enjoyable to complete.

As for any large company that takes on a large number of placement students, interns, graduates and apprentices, there has to be a great amount of organisation in terms of training. Although, on the other hand where there is such a large amount of people it can be slightly harder to contact people and get things done. I myself found it best to find someone by walking over to their desk and talking to them, as asking questions in person can move things forward a lot quicker than sending emails.

As soon as I attended my first day of work I was given a number of training courses to get me as up-to-date with the company as possible. For the first few months I was given new training exercises and courses to complete; as well as being trained, in the take-over process, by the previous intern I was taking over from.

This is one of the largest companies on the planet. Therefore moving up in this company can only be beneficial. The company offer graduate schemes as well full time jobs to many of their interns and apprentices so it's a great place for opportunities.

With such a large number of "Early careers" workers such as interns, new graduates and apprentices, there are many social events that occur. Weekly friendly football games occur, as well as social nights out with team members as well as interns.

Cheltenham isn't the most expensive place to live. Coming from London I felt that a lot of things were reasonably cheap including rent and living. The wage covers all expenses as well as giving you a prime opportunity to save money whilst still technically being a student.

I commuted to London most weekends, but from what I did experience and was told by housemates the nightlife in Cheltenham is of a decent standard, due to the large student population in town. There's a number of pubs and clubs in town that aren't too expensive too.

Yes. Within my first 3 months I'd been to social events with my team, been to weekly football games and had signed up to be involved in a large volunteering scheme ran by interns at the company. So there are lots of things you can do outside of the workplace.