Media Events Assistant Review

My time at BMW Group UK has been a very insightful experience, i have been given the opportunity to work amongst highly skilled professionals and undertake a year of training in my chosen field. I have been given unique opportunities to organise and execute Press Events for product launches nationally and internationally, whilst learning how to hone professional skills that can be applied both in personal life and future careers.

My colleagues were very supportive of me and my role is an integral part of the teams opperations, without this role the events team could not function properly. It was very rewarding to feel depended upon and taught me to deal with responsibilty and effective time management. The team recognised the importance of my work and my role and i felt like a higly valued member of the team.

There was a strong support system, if i needed help or advice i knew it was readily available. There were instances in the beggining where i felt overwhelmed by the amount of work expected of me as the only member of my team for 3 months, i would have required more support then, but there wasn't enough staff available to offer me that support. Since my supervisor/manager has joined i have received much more support and training to help me manage the role effectively.

I loved my job this year and it has made me want to stick in this industry (events), though at times i was overwhelmed with the workload, especially when i was the only member of the events team. It was a struggle at times with 2 of us in the events team when there are up to 18 events in a month to manage and as the intern, a lot of the smaller events were passed on to me to manage and at times i felt not everyone in the team appreciated how much work went into the smaller events as well as managing the larger events and responsibilities that came with them. I definitely noted that i was amongst the busier members of the intern community with lots of things to do and lots of responsibility.

I was given A LOT of responsibility, more than i could have hoped for in a Placement Year!! I was given autonomy in various areas and even ran events single-handed, which is incredible! These were exciting and scary experiences to have early in the placement, but this allowed me to hit the ground running and immerse myself in the learning experience early on. Couldn't have asked for anything better!

This placement has offered a wealth of learning and development opportunities that are applicable in my degree and future career. I have undertaken training courses in a variety of areas that i feel i needed to improve e.g. Assertiveness and excel, these i can take forward with me and use them in everyday life.

The atmosphere in the office was always positive, there was never a day i felt uncomfortable or unwelcome. There were times throughout the year where the team were strapped with work and people were unable to make team meetings etc. but this was never a problem and we all welcomed the next meeting and looked forward to it.

The Placement was organised very well! I had everything I needed set-up and waiting for me and there were multiple sessions for you to drop in on to ask questions to the HR Intern Manager. We were given lots of opportunities as an Intern communitiy to come together and grow as a group.

The company does invest heavily in the interns, they value you as they do any full-time employee and offer you the same benefits (minus the car). I undertook development courses to better myself as a professional and was given equal opportunities to my colleagues regarding travel and training benefits. They also offer an internal scheme for interns to progress to a career for when they graduate by skipping the graduate scheme.

The organisation does offer an appealing package for employment with lots of benefits and they offer interns the opportunity for 'Speed-Up', an internal progression scheme which allows interns to bypass the Graduate Scheme and come back to a job once they finish their degree. This is very appealing to those who have found an industry and company they wish to work for, though for me, this year has offered me the opportunity to realise that this industry isn't for me and i can now move on to a more suitable industry in the future.

There was a good social scene, though i lived a long way from work and the placement students so i never made it along to the social events. I did go to a few social events with my team outside of work such as awards ceremonies and drinks, these were lovely occurences when they happened but were rare sadly - I'd have liked a more social team.

There wasn't very much to do where i worked so no one ever went out there to socialise. I lived in London and commuted in so my cost of living was sadly high so i couldn't afford to socialise outside of work often, ideally i'd have lived more locally or had a higher salary...second option preferred!

Poor. Very poor. The area is very rural and there are very few places to go out, This has made me realise how important socialising is to me so in future i look to have a job closer to a city or in London, Farnborough is not an ideal location to live or work.

There are, if you know how to find them. One intern said he was finding out how to join the company football club for 3 months because it was so hard to find out how to join. I joined the running club but otherwise i was largely unaware of what was available.