Electrical Engineering Summer intern Review

BAE Systems is a huge company and as such it provides endless opportunities for everyone. It doesn't matter if what you initially do doesn't appeal you, this is the right place where when you talk to people you find loads of opportunities just behind the corner. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there as I was also given enough freedom so that I could do what I preferred the most.

Everyone is there to help, the atmosphere in my office is really good. It is an open space where everyone can talk to all the people around, which is great for brainstorming. Not everyone can get involved with the work you do though, so normally I would have to deal only with the graduate guy I was working with and the number of interactions were only limited by the meetings we would quite often run.

As mentioned before the only guy to assist me was a graduate just coming out of the graduate scheme and despite his guidance was excellent I wish I had tried to work under different people to try and get the most out of the internship because people like managers normally don't want to deal with interns and prefer to delegate to someone else.

Everyday was different from another, which generally is a good thing, however, generally the rule "make yourself busy" applies. Not in a negative way though, which I think can be stimulating. I volunteered to organise the Summer Intern Conference and this gave me quite a lot to do and in terms of learning new things and dealing with people this was great. So probably it is good you have some "free" time that allows you to mange it yourself.

Without entering into too much details when you don't even have a degree in engineering and basically no experience it is not likely you will be given to do massive projects. Keeping this in mind, and also I still had two years to finish my degree, while almost all other interns had one year to go, I consider to have done and learned significant and impactful activities.

This is the key point of my internship. To mention a few examples I learned a lot of Excel functions that all companies use but were not taught in my University, no to mention a lot of technical stuff that normally is not covered at a University level so it is good to have when you work in my field.

Atmosphere is great. Being an open office type of space it is also good to learn how to socialise with the people around you. You would normally realise that almost everyone enjoys being asked what they do and this can sometimes be the beginning of a work-friendship, something that can always come in hand.

Although my previous experience tells me the organisation here was excellent I want to be harsh here and say a lot can be improved. On an HR point of view this company is amazing but in terms of managers that have to find you something to do then it is again a bit démodé like other smaller companies that don't have so much fame on them like BAE does.

The company invests a lot and generally the rule "ask and it will be given" applies. I don't give a full 10/10 because I think considering many factors the company can improve a lot more, so this should be the beginning only! I cannot deny, however that I made a few dreams come through in my experience here.

I think rather than future employment in the company, the most appealing thing is the possibility to have a full career with them. It is not restricted to a few who manage to climb the career ladder and personally I have spoken to many different people who now cover exceptional roles. If this is not your aim, though, then it is a company like many others, if you don't have the desire or skills to rise then the pay as a basic engineer is not very different from other companies around the country.

This is not a game changing aspect people should even consider in my opinion but to make you feel better know that it is good! Guys in my group organised a Facebook chat where loads of activities were organised every wee end so there was always something to do, plus meeting new people is great and having a social life outside work is important as well.

Glasgow is quite expensive but as you spend more time you get to know the "cheaper" version of what you were doing before and that is always good. The overall cost of living is still significantly high but the salary, considering the level is good too so the two factors balance out quite nicely. Overall I found accommodation to be too expensive and this is also because of the length of the placement that doesn't allow long more convenient contracts.

Again I feel this is not a field that people should be considering when applying for an internship, but if this is your concern then Glasgow is the city that will make you happy! Loads of clubs and bars for any pocket really. Plus add to the count that here it is common to do sub crawls (pub crawls) on the underground then if you are not convinced yet I don't honesty know where you would wish to go. Personally I was happier to know Glasgow is close to three international airports that are well served and run cheap flights.

As mentioned before the social groups are there and quite active as well. Also the HR team is very active as well and there are laterally endless opportunities for you to make your CV look better by doing extra curricular things. Again here the more proactive you are the more likely you will be to do more and different things.