Cloud Ecosystem Development Marketing and Events Assistant Review

I have loved my year at IBM, based in Hursley. The placement scheme is very tailored to the students having the best experience they can and your professionals manager is there whenever you need them. You never feel like you're on your own in any situation.

You are given a real life job and real work to do. There's never any typical 'intern' work given and you will feel like a valued member of the team who is giving actual contribution. IBM is a large company so I was lucky to have a small team where I could meet everyone who was part of the UK team.

When starting a placement at IBM, not only do you have a task manager of your day to day role but you are given a placement early professionals manager who you can go to with any issues you may come across. We had unit meetings every few months where our EPM would attend so you really get to know them and feel comfortable approaching them.

The first half of my placement I was quite busy, however as my role was events based, how busy we were really depended on what events we had going on, what budget we had for events and what we were allowed or capable to do. The team I was part of went through a large change at the beginning of my second half of my placement so because of this I was not as busy in the second half where not a lot, my end event wise, was going on. However, the placement scheme encourages give back (out of role activities you can get involved with) so there was always stuff usually to find to do as long as you are pro-active and find this yourself.

You are treated as a valuable member of your team so the responsibility you are given is fantastic but you do also have the support when you need it as your manager knows you are new to the role. The responsibility should get greater as you progress but as mentioned before, we didn't have many events in the second half of my placement so therefore this wasn't really applicable as there weren't options for increased responsibility.

I have a better grasp on where I was to go in the future which is fantastic. Regarding skills for my studies .. I don't doubt the placement will help my final year but this is hard to know until I have got back to University and start studying again. Time keeping and organisational skills however are main aspects that I do not doubt will really help, not only with my final year but in the future.

I was lucky enough to work with two other girls my age in my team and so because of that the atmosphere was quite vibrant and fun .. I looked forward to going into work. However, the office we were in was often quite quiet, relative to who was in the office, so the office itself wasn't the most vibrant place ... but because of the company I was in, that didn't matter as much.

This is a hard question to answer as, as I have mentioned, my placement was pretty much split in two with the first half and second half because of all the managerial and team changes. This isn't the placement scheme's fault and it does happen. If anything, it has opened up my eyes and experiences with the real like corporate working environment and how changes can effect individuals and a team as a whole.

The placement scheme offers many training opportunities and networking events so in regards to this they really do want you to feel like you have learnt, not only about the working life, but skills that you can take on in your future.

The company is great for up coming graduates so I will be looking towards working for IBM but potentially not within the UK as they don't offer many marketing graduate jobs in their graduate scheme here.

Amazing, I couldn't fault the social scene with fellow placement students, apprentices and gap years here at IBM. As IBM offer many routes, gap year, apprenticeships, graduates, placements etc, there are many people around the same age who are all living near each other and are up for socialising. There was never a dull weekend!

Pricey in the fact that we were down South but I am from here so that was no shock to me. Compared to London the prices really aren't bad at all and there are always student deals going on!

There are many areas here to go to. I was based in Hursley so we would usually go out in Southampton where there are numerous areas to go .. but we could also go to Winchester which was great for pub quizzes and pub nights. You aren't in the city though so taxi's etc are required but everyone is near so taxi sharing was no problem!

Not necessarily unless it was part of give back, for example I went to Marwell Zoo one day with my manager and we gave back to the community... but other than that it was more what we organised.