Watson IoT Workload Manager Review

My Placement has been the highlight of my degree. Moving to London and being able to work for one of the worlds biggest companies is a life changing opportunity. I have developed so much professionally and personally, developed a new skill set and made my future career prospects so much brighter.

My colleagues and manager valued the work I conducted and often praised me for my tenacity and attention paid to my core role and responsibilities. My colleagues took time out of their busy schedules to educate me and to assist with my training and to ensure I was having the best possible experience as an intern.

Management were keen to ensure I was making ample progress and making the best out of the Placement Year. However, I feel that more time could have been allotted to 1:1 professional development time with a manager, this would have been beneficial considering this stage of our career is still a learning stage.

My core role, would leave me with a couple of hours each day spare. But these were not left idly sitting around. There were countless side projects to get involved in. From organising events, writing reports and yearbooks, to volunteering in schools. My entire time was filled and I was constantly busy throughout my year.

I was given a great deal of responsibility in my core role. I was the first line of call for many major clients and had first hand experience dealing with them. I was given these responsibilities immediately after taking over from the prior intern, and this was a superb way to challenge me and really pusg me out of my comfort zone.

I completely diversified my skill set, picking up skills that were not related to my degree at all but which are now a new tool that I can utilise. My degree skills gave me competence in many areas of my work and allowed me to excel. I believe the year has vastly increased my future employability.

The office was quite quiet and even empty on occasions. However, the other interns at the office became great friends of mine, and we organised plenty of after work activities to get involved in. The employees that were in the office were always kind and friendly, always ready to provide a helping hand.

The Placement was very well setup. There was a very clear roadmap from the induction of the journey that I would take during the year. I would only liked to have had a greater understanding of the role before my first day, so that I could begin to prepare myself for the work I was going to undertake.

Online training, learning sessions, on-site training, professional development, skills boosters; were all a constant theme of my placement year. The wealth of online training resources was almost overwhelming and gave a superb array of subjects in which to learn and develop new skills. I attended multiple learning sessions and gained online certifications for a number of subjects.

You are given a recurring indication throughout the year of your chances to return to the company, and this is results based on your assessments throughout the year. From the results and feedback I have received, I believe I stand a good chance of securing a graduate role with the company.

I lived with two fellow interns and around the corner from a further few interns. We regularly spent time together after work and on weekends, we had loads of fun and became good friends. There were not a great amount of activities organised by the company, howerver, there was an intern boat party which was a lot of fun.

Rent was reasonable as we were near the outskirts of London. However, rent and bills still took around 60% of the Intern monthly wage, so tight budgeting was a necessity. There were plenty of pubs and bars and a decent club near by to go to on weekends or after work.