Intern Review

Really enjoyed the projects I have been getting involved in over the 10 weeks as well as living in halls in London. There were times where I was really struggling to find work and this led to some slow afternoons but this was definitely not often. Only 7 because I do find being static and staring at screens all day quite frustrating at times.

My team were so welcoming to me, never made me feel silly for asking any kind of question and every member actively made sure I had work to do and felt involved. This made my daily work so much more interesting and placement life so much more bearable. A few colleagues continuously kept me in the loop on processes, giving me a great sense of responsibility.

A immense amount of support and guidance. I am somebody who takes quite a while to understand processes on top of things like general anxiety in a new job/city and they really showed patience when guiding me through new things. The majority of my team gave me just as much guidance as my line manager who gave me an awful lot so everyone was very helpful.

I felt that some of the middle weeks ended up being very quiet and then I had a build up on the 8th week of a bit too much to do (I was set projects at the beginning that were due by the end but it seemed sometimes my colleagues forgot that naturally the end of my placement is a busy time). But other than that I had a good balance day to day, I hear other interns staying until 7pm to finish their huge workloads and I always leave by 10 past 5 so I have no complaints for being too busy.

I feel like I've had a great amount of responsibility, it started off light and quickly built up which was a great test of resilience. Now I am starting to take the lead in some meetings/projects so it has progressed perfectly in terms of the timescale of my internship. For example, this week I have a meeting with senior management on a project I have taken lead of this month so its a great high to finish the internship on.

Undoubtedly skills for life. My first 9-5 job living in the capital is an unforgettable experience and I feel like I have been pushed to hone in on all my skills (including one I was weaker on at the beginning). For my degree its as subtle as being able to wake up for that 9am a little easier, to deeply personal skills like my presentation and leadership skills. For life its a broad collection of interpersonal, computing, financial/commercial awareness skills etc.

Good balance of fun and focus. At times (mainly Fridays) very quiet and I could not work at home as me and my LM agreed it was best not to so just a few of us as some times. This didn't really dull the atmosphere too much as I had people sat near me all the time but the overall floor did get quite quiet.

I think a lot of work has gone into the placement progress. It is easy for us interns to write things off as a distraction from our actual jobs but regardless of somebody's opinion it doesn't change the amount of organisation put into the scheme. The scheme was let down slightly in my opinion by interns who became complacent and believed their daily job was too important to get involved in some development opportunities.

I felt as if I was being invested in almost constantly, although I personally think I would have liked opportunities to travel to an office in a different city. Before starting my placement I was assured via a phone call that there would be opportunities for me but it appeared to be a bit of a inconvenience once I got here. Saying that, I enjoyed it so much down here that I'm not really too fussed anymore.

The future prospects are very appealing. For example, the grad scheme referral is something a lot of us interns want by the end and this is because you are basically guaranteed a graduate job if successfully admitted. Alongside that, if you don't get referred the placement still puts you in a great position when formally applying as all other applicants would do.

If I'm honest, considering 100 interns were here in halls in London I barely saw anybody. The first couple weeks were okay as people made an effort on Friday and Saturday nights but It died down really quickly. I've met some great people in halls but I still think the social scene could have been a lot better. I didn't even hear about the boat party until the night it was happening.

Expensive but as we had our accommodation paid for us and we had the London premium we couldn't really complain. Did not have to pay travel costs as work was a 25 minute walk, but yeah it was very expensive to drink and eat as is the majority of central London.

Really close to Shoreditch (10-15 min walk) and pubs in Angel are also really good to relax and meet friends. I feel like if I had a bigger group of mates we would have really got involved a bit more but it was difficult to get a big group together when you barely saw anybody in halls.

I guess if you meet lots of people and make lots of good friends then you organise things out of work but it didn't happen too often with me. Then again there are so many things going on around such as 5 a side pitches, pubs, parks, gyms so lots of places to keep occupied.