IT intern Review

The placement was a good experience with a variety of work. The company were very inspiring as I could see leaders who had started in a similar place to the one I was in. Work was not always the most interesting but this is to be expected. The majority of work was new and challenging.

I felt very valued by all my colleagues. Everyone was very pleasant and on the most part everyone respected each other's opinions. Everyone was part of a team, there were a few people that were less friendly but in such a large company this is expected. I have made some friends for life

By supervisor did not for the most part 'support', my manager however was very good at putting time aside to help guide me. Between the 2 of them I feel like I was given a reasonable amount of support and guidance. Others on the team also helped give support when needed.

This varied greatly from day to day. Some days I was very busy and had no time to stop, other days there was little to do and I had to go find work from somewhere for myself. I was usually given a fair amount of work that was satisfyingly challenging.

I was given a lot of responsibility over the duration of my placement. It was expected that I run my own projects - although I was given support if I needed it. I also acted as 'The face of IT' for the duration of my placement and a lot of people on the site that I was based would come to me first for IT issues.

I feel like the placement has given me an idea of the skills that are needed in the real world, and how the theoretical knowledge from uni can be applied in a real world environment to the best effect. Also taught skills that cannot be learnt in a class room environment

The atmosphere in the office in general was good. The office had a Christmas party and celebrated events like birthday.

The organisation was not great. There were several different streams of placement students onsite (Such as finance, engineering, Human Resources and Information Technology) and there was a focus on the engineers in the intro training, if you were not one of the main streams you were brushed to the side.

I had quite bit of training and if I could prove training would help me with my job or personal development in general the company were happy to send me on the training. There was a little bit of confusion over some training where we were told they would hold the sessions on site and then never got round to it.

Not great. There is a graduate program but the odds were sold as being really bad - particularly as I was not based on the main site- nor did I work any projects with the main site placement students as I had enough project work based on my own site

There was a good social scene with a lot of meet ups organised by the placement students for the placement students onsite. We were also put together on our first few days to encourage good relationships. Activities such as paint balling and a Christmas meal were organised by the other placement students

The cost of living in the area is very cheap and good value for money - both rent and bills wise and in terms of going out for meals and socialising etc. Transport is not too expensive either, - there are good transport links as well to London and other major cities

Not my scene

There were a lot of opportunities to get involved in volunteering in the area, the company promoted the STEM network and encouraged employees to help with events linked to STEM. There were other volunteering opportunities as well – including walking a 3 peak challenge in Wales. There were also opportunities for other social activities as well