Student Placement Review

Enjoyable experience with a variety of tasks to keep me busy. I was able to take on real jobs and responsibilities, and shape the placement to focus on what I was interested in. Even as a technical/engineering intern, I got to see all parts of product life-cycle including sales, marketing and support.

Most of the work done was appreciated by colleagues and I was involved with meetings at various levels. From the start of the placement, suggestions for changing and improving processes were well received. I wasn't treated as 'just an intern'. I would like to have been involved more with some of the other sides of the business though.

Good support and guidance at the start - learning about how the equipment and company works as a whole. Had a full skills review mid-way through to assess progress. Catch-up meetings and briefings declined towards the 2nd half of the year due to manager taking on more responsibility and having less time and conflicting schedules.

Some days and weeks were busier than others because the work wasn't planned in advance. Most of the tasks given to me were ones that came up from requests of customers or other teams in the company so would be sporadic. However, my manager was flexible in allowing me to take on projects that could be worked on in the background on slow days.

The levels of responsibility given tended to vary throughout the placement, depending how confident I was to take on tasks. I was allowed to get involved with meetings with key customers and internally on a senior level, but often had to request to be more involved when I wanted to take on new responsibilities.

Honestly, not too many of the skills learned were directly related to my degree. The work done on equipment was more systems-level/ IT than electronics based, but still useful. I learned more about managing products and how a business like Sony operates - a focus on soft skills for the future.

Open plan office with most departments on the upper floor. Has a generally relaxed atmosphere, with most following a smart-casual dress code, depending on role. It can be pretty quiet on some days of the week (particularly Fridays) and when colleagues are working internationally for events/ trade shows but there are shared chill-out areas to meet with other interns.

The Student Placement Year (SPY) framework was fairly well organised and standard across all the placements but day-to-day work was handled by managers. Unlike other students, my placement tasks were more ad-hoc than planned out projects and work/training was completed as and when it was needed. This worked out well for me but other students may want more structure to their time here.

The SPY program ran 4 dedicated development days with all the interns (both Basingstoke and Weybridge). There are also a range of training courses run throughout the year for Sony employees, from presentation skills to stress management and IT training, which students could enrol on to by asking their managers.

On the engineering side, most development done for my department took place in Japan (can't comment on other depts) so it's unlikely that I'd come back to do a technical role. If I was interested in product management and marketing, however, I would probably consider coming back to work at Sony.

Most of the placement students are living in the local area, so do spend time socialising outside of work - eg. nights out, shopping, going for dinner etc. There is a limited number of things to do in Basingstoke though, so most tend to drive further afield to spend their spare time.

There is pretty much only one nightclub in the local town center, which ended up populated by mostly Sony interns when we went. We sometimes went further out into Reading, but overall the nightlife was mostly spending time in the other interns' accommodation. Basingstoke does have a good variety of restaurants though.