IT Engagament Intern Review

Although it did take a lot of effort to get started at the beginning and most of the first week was spent doing general admin things I do feel as though this placement was highly rewarding. Going in to the internship I had a vague idea of the sort of job I would want but I wasn't 100% sure. Being the type of person who is heavily interested in IT but not wanting to simply sit in front of a computer all day I could never properly describe the job role I would want to be put in to. But after spending my time on the IT Engagement internship I feel as though I now know what job I would like to get in the future.

From the moment I started everyone in my team treated me with the same equal level of respect and never had a poor attitude towards me. Nevertheless, I did get the feeling that at the beginning some of the employees higher up the company did not have full confidence in me and so would initially steer away from interacting with me on certain issues. That being said as time went on I believe people understood if they wanted tasks/issues passed on as efficiently as possible it would be best to trust me with it as others in my team were extremely busy.

After completing my mandatory online training I was then in possession of the general ideas/skills of how the office operates on a general basis. Following that my line manager made sure to organise weekly 1 to 1's where she would reassure me that she wasn't expecting me to know everything immediately and that I could ask her anything no matter how silly I might think it may be. By doing this it allowed me to process through tasks slowly but surely and as I went on I managed to grasp how tasks were completed and then could do them myself without having to think twice about it.

At the start of the internship my manager didn't want to overwhelm me with work and so for the first week or so things were taken quite slowly. But as time passed I was slowly put in to more meetings and given more tasks to do. Before I knew it I was booking my own meetings and having to liaise with very important people all by myself. I may have started doing a few small parts on one project but by the end I was working on various projects at the same time and having to balance my time well to make sure they were completed on time. Overall I would say I was always kept busy but I was never worked to the point where I felt like I couldn't cope.

Initially I didn't have too much responsibility but after a short while my manager showed a great amount of trust in me and would set me important tasks or requests to forward to the rest of the business. I feel like the amount of responsibility I gained was great as I could see that those working around me saw me as important enough to trust several tasks with and not just an intern who should just be given paperwork to sit and fill out.

I feel like this internship will be extremely helpful going forward in my life. Firstly, just the general experience of being in the office environment and understanding how everyone interacts with each other is an invaluable experience that you can only get from actually being here. Secondly, the internship has really helped me to understand exactly what sort of job role I would like to go in to in the future. Finally, I feel like some of the issues/tasks that have come about while I have been here could be vital in helping me to develop my final year project.

In general the atmosphere in the in the office was very good. People would always come in to the office with a smile on their faces and you never got the impression that people didn’t want to be there. In addition to this you would never feel as though people were just eager to leave as soon as 5pm came along as everyone seemed dedicated to the work they were doing.

The overall internship was well set up. Beginning with my line manager and graduate ‘buddy’ calling me a few weeks before I was due to begin there was rarely an occasion throughout the whole of the placement where I felt like I didn’t know what step was going to be next.

Each member of staff at my placement (especially those in my team) were happy to invest whatever spare time they had in helping me to have the best time possible. Even in times where they were very busy they assured me I could book in 30 minutes with them if I needed help.

There are many chances for me to progress in the business should I choose to. The main being the graduate scheme that they offer which I have priority to since I have undertaken the internship. In this it would allow me to experience various parts of the business to make a final decision how I would like to proceed in the future.

As I was commuting I wasn’t involved in any social outings with the other interns or my colleagues. Although I did partake in various charity activities on behalf of the business and their partner charities.

I commuted so I cannot give a figure but it was cheaper for me to commute than to live in one of the rooms that was offered to me in Milton Keynes.

I didn’t live in the area so I wouldn’t know.

Aside from raising funds for charity there was not.