Business Analyst Review

I occasionally enjoyed my internship with GE. I enjoyed it when I was given tasks that required me to think and challenged me. However, I was often left without anything to do for days, even weeks at a time, this meant I spent a lot of time bored out of my mind. The people I worked with, especially the other interns were great to work with and I definitely enjoyed the social aspect of it. Unfortunately, the social side is a very small part.

I felt valued by the members of my own team at work and also by the other interns and graduates. However the placement manager didn't seem to care too much about what we did and so would have ridiculous expectations of us. This made me feel less valued by other people as the consensus was that if the placement manager thought this, so would everyone else.

My manager was excellent at GE, she valued me as a member of the team, was always interested in what I was doing, both professionally and personally. However the intern supervisor wasn't half the supportive mentor that my manager was. I remember one occasion where I was having a hard time adjusting and told her that I was considering leaving. The intern supervisor's response was basically to tell me to suck it up. There have been other times like this where I have felt that she wasn't there to support at all and in turn I dreaded meeting with her.

There were occasions where I would be busy, researching new ways to improve my work and then applying these solutions. There were also other opportunities we could get involved with in order to improve our soft skills. However I was often left with little to no work to do and despite repeatedly asking for more, had too much free time and so was very bored.

I was given some responsibility during my placement. I was of course responsible for my own work and then I was given a lot of responsibility in my chosen committee. However I felt that the work I was doing wasn't mission critical and was more busy work that they didn't have anyone else who could spare the time to do.

I believe that the soft skills I have developed will aid me in the future. I have developed my confidence, improved my people and social skills, learnt to be a better leader and a better team player. However with the lack of technical roles that GE offers, I believe that I may have neglected a few of my programming skills, which may in fact harm me when I return to Uni.

The atmosphere in my office was varied. We were led to believe that everyone would be scrutinising every move we made in the office. This turned out to be false, the only ones who did this, were the graduates and intern supervisor. They made us feel judged when we left to go to the bathroom, left to go home, if we weren't in for any reason, etc. They occasionally had open conversations about us, that we could hear and there was one case of an intern being yelled at in front of everyone in the office by a graduate. However the other employees were perfectly pleasant, which was the opposite of what we were told to expect.

I believe that the placement was very well organised. Before the placement started we were assigned buddies from the company, these helped us get everything sorted before we started placement. There was a good structure to the hierarchy of who we would be reporting to. There were good feedback and training sessions that were run.

The company offered us a couple of opportunities for further training, of which we would gain certification. The internship is also considered a year long training session and interview for the graduate scheme that GE offer. So in that respect I believe that that company do invest a lot into you, they encourage all interns to apply for the graduate scheme.

For me, personally. I will not be pursuing a further opportunity at GE, The position was not what I expected it to be, I didn't get to do anything technical and as such classed myself as a glorified admin worker, and that's when I actually had some work to do. The graduate scheme seems to be much of the same of what I have experienced in my year and from asking around and learning within, it appears there isn't a huge amount of room for growth from there.

There was a very good social scheme with the other placement students. We often went out for food or drinks after work, we also organised more planned events. Such as going out in London or somewhere local for different activities. We also had lunch together everyday and would go for walks or play table football.

My rent with bills inclusive was £500, I consider that reasonable for the location. Socialising wasn't too bad, drinks are obviously more expensive that up north but I managed to enjoy myself and have money left over each month.

I was a 40 minute train ride from London, which meant that the nightlife is probably some of the best in the country. I couldn't experience it all, but what I did, I enjoyed.

There were a few opportunities to get involved outside of work. We tried to organise charitable activities to get involved in.