Intern Review

I was given a mentor and a manager when I started my internship. My manager was intended to take care of anything that wasn't related to my project, while my mentor was there to give me help with specifics of my project. These relationships worked very well, and I always felt like I could ask anything I needed to.

I always had something to do, but never felt pressured.

I was responsible for making a dashboard for the support team. The dashboard is intended to be used by a group of 8 or so employees and is displayed on 2 dedicated monitors mounted on a pillar. There was a fair bit of responsibility in the sense that if the dashboard was very good, it could be very helpful to the team, and even extended to other teams. However, the worst case scenario was that it wasn't used - not the end of the world.

Specifically, we had an 'Activity week' where on one day the interns all gave a presentation to a small group, and received feedback. This was valuable experience as it isn't something we had done in my university course. Also we had a 'Vacathon' event, where we tried ambitious projects in small groups over the course of 3 days.

The atmosphere in the office was ideal for me. It was fairly quiet, so I could get on with work without distractions, but it wasn't over-intense, and I wasn't afraid to talk to someone if I wanted to. Moreover, the office wasn't very crowded and the desk spaces were quite big, so I had plenty of space to work in.

Everything was in order before I arrived. I even asked a few times for last minute changes to be made to my holiday plans. They were very quick to accommodate this. I was given a highly subsidised company house on the same quiet road on the office, which I didn't have any problems with.

Very appealing. There is a great atmosphere here: lots of clever people doing what they enjoy in a relaxed manner. There are great, cheap company houses open to interns and new-starters and the workplaces are very clean and comfortable. Also, there are lot's of social activities and sports that employees can get involved in.

There was a wide range of activities for employees including sports and games - during my tenure, there was an overarching competition between different parts of the business, giving interns a chance to participate in company life. More specifically for interns, there was a number of morale trips, including mini-golf and go-carting.

The company house was highly subsidised - I wouldn't have stayed in such a nice location if I had been paying myself. The prices of food etc. in the local area is fairly normal. Couple this with the generous wage that the company pays to interns and an intern can expect to save quite a bit of money during their time here..

While there were a couple of pubs in the area that could cause a tiny bit of unwanted noise, the atmosphere around the company house was quiet and peaceful. I was able to get a good night's sleep to set me up in the best possible way for the following day of work.