SQA Intern Review

I really enjoyed my placement. It gave me great insight about the industry in my country and what I will be preparing myself to enter in the future. I have enjoyed my placement so much that despite being with the company for over a year, it feels like it's only been a few months. As the saying goes, time flies when you're having fun.

I felt very valued by my colleagues. In any of the company events inside and outside the workplace, I was always invited and welcome. I always felt like I had a friend within the office as everyone was very welcoming towards me. In terms of the work I did, the employees really valued what I was doing and made me feel valued as I was doing something to help them within their ongoing or future work.

If I was ever in need of help, I knew I could always turn to someone to ask for it, whether that was by other employees throughout the company, fellow interns or my manager. There was really no such thing as a silly question as every query I've put across to anyone has always been answered and I was always taken seriously throughout the workplace.

I was kept very busy from the start. Whether that was the few months of continuous training at the start, to now on my ongoing project. Day-to-day I have always had a list of things to do, whether these were made by the project manager or a list made by myself of things I know I need to do throughout the day or week.

I was given a good share of responsibility as I was assigned a role within my placement project from early on at the start of my placement. This gave me the opportunity to set myself goals, targets and deadlines within reason. It was self-motivating knowing I could do this for myself, which I found throughout the year was very rewarding meeting these self-assigned targets.

Throughout my placement year I have built upon knowledge that I had been studying 2 years prior. This will be very helpful to me in my future career and also final year as I may be studying modules of the same nature. In terms of other skills such as social, I feel more confident from my year placement, which I believe will be helpful in my future career.

The atmosphere I feel depended on circumstances. There were plenty of days where the office was very relaxed and everyone looked like they enjoyed being there. Whereas there were days where a deadline was fast approaching and the office was very quiet and near felt still. However, I found this all appropriate as it gets work done within the office without being too strict. The office generally had a good atmosphere.

I feel like it was organised well. From the start we given what to do and it was very easy to follow up on it. An example would be that we knew that the first 2 months from when we started there was all training. To get us up to speed with the company and what kind of work we would be doing for our placement year.

As I had mentioned in my previous comment, I was given 2 months of training. In terms of how personal the training was, I felt at times it really was. When we were being shown how to do multiple tasks that we would be doing throughout the year, previous interns that were soon to be leaving to go back to final year were helping us individually. So if you had a specific problem yourself, they were always there to help.

From my year within the company, I find it very appealing to continue my career with them. I have had a great placement year with them and I would imagine that when I graduate from final year that I would love to return to them. I think it would be very rewarding staying with the company.

I thought there was a good social scene between myself and other interns/colleagues. There were plenty of events organised through the company and outside of it to engage in social activities. Examples would be charity events and the staff Christmas dinner, both these events I had a lot of fun within.

As my office was in the city center, it was rather costly to live close. I actually chose to do so regardless and really enjoyed it, however, it was costly. In terms of socialising, being within the city center was always enjoyable as it always had a buzz with it always being relatively busy.

As it was a city, there were endless nightclubs and bars you could go to on the weekends or even after work. My workplace was also relatively close to the student land of the city, so you could enjoy student nights out even with working. I myself enjoyed going to bars occasionally at the weekends.

There ample amounts of activities organised outside of work. Whether that was going to a bar to celebrate after work or if anyone was organising something themselves outside of work. Opportunities were made and we were always invited, it really made you feel included in everything and it made you look forward to it all.