Commercial Marketing Intern Review

I have really enjoyed my summer at Centrica. It's a very sociable internship as all the interns live together at Royal Holloway University so you see a lot of each other and I have made some really good friends. The people at Centrica as a whole are very friendly and I have felt very welcomed and relaxed from the start.

I was put in a great team working in Rewards where they have a lot of projects on the go the whole time so I was thrown in and really involved. Because I was given a fair few projects to work on and manage I felt as though the work that I was contributing to the team effort was valued by my colleagues. They gave me meaningful things to work and really just treated me as another member of their team.

My team was brilliant in making sure that I was alright with all my work and that I knew what I was doing. I always felt like I could ask them any question I had and they would always be super helpful and have time to sit down and go through things with me. I had weekly reviews with my manager to go through everything I was working on and to give me guidance on what the next steps were. Couldn't complain about my team at all!

At the beginning as you are settling in and just learning about the business and what all the processes are it feels fairly quiet as it is difficult for your team to hand tasks straight over to you. But after the first couple of weeks the work really starts picking up and you are fully involved and I didn't find myself twiddling my thumbs. Towards there was a lot going on with the projects and presentation coming up etc. but by this point you can handle it.

During my placement I was given a lot of responsibility. I was put in charge of looking after a new project for Rewards where I had to keep it on track and make sure that everyone working in the team was kept up to date with everything going on/ arrange meetings/ update my line manager on its progression/ contact other teams. I felt like they trusted me with delivering it and it was great to be fully involved in the day to day workings of the team.

The skills that I've learnt will definitely help me beyond university. I would feel much more confident in an interview and have good knowledge of how marketing works on a large scale. My degree is fairly unrelated to this internship however, I can take time management and good communication skills from it to apply to my degree.

The office atmosphere was always very friendly and welcoming, which was something that I noticed very quickly on my assessment day. The offices are all open plan meaning people mix and match with who they sit with making it a very sociable space. They always have things like charity cake sales going on and it's a very comfortable place to work.

The internship was very well organised and felt like a lot of thought and effort went into planning the activity days and what we needed to develop. Throughout the placement there were round ups each week with pointers on what you needed to be doing or letting you know of deadlines for things which kept everyone on track. Each intern is also assigned a line manager that looks after them and I had weekly one to ones with mine, making sure I was always good with what I was doing and could ask any questions.

This was a major standout point of the programme, it really feels as though the company are investing a lot in you and your personal development. At the beginning we were given excel training, commercial days, team building and development days. Beyond these I was able to organise my own deleopment days such as time shadowing designers at an agency in London, all of which was funded by Centrica. They are constantly encouraging you to try and learn more about what you are interested in by talking to other teams in the business.

Centrica overall has been a brilliant place for being an intern and I think this would also translate into the grad scheme being highly valuable. Despite Centrica being in a difficult financial position, I think it would be a great place to work because it respects the boundaries of work and home life and is a company in which it is possible to move around and find what it is that you are truly interested in and enjoy doing. I think the direction the company is moving in is certainly a challenge for the employees however it is also rather exciting.

The great thing about the internship is there are so many other interns that it is a bit like being back at uni. There is a ready made social scene and I have made a great bunch of new friends that I will stay in touch with for sure. We did things most evenings after work, even if it was just getting together to watch love Island in the evening!

The cost of living in Egham was pretty standard, there was a Tesco round the corner for food shops and lots of restaurants between the surrounding towns; Windsor, Staines and Egham. The main social activities were eating out and walking round Virginia lake which was beautiful. The one other thing we did as the weather was super hot was go on the Thorpe aqua park which was fun and £15.

I didn't personally go clubbing, mainly spent my money on meals out instead. I think there are a couple of places in Windsor although people didn't rave about them. Egham isn't too far from Clapham junction which may have been more lively, or maybe into central London at the weekend.

Amongst the interns I found there was enough going on, you just had to sort of make plans for yourself as nothing was organised. For the guys there ears some football and sport going on but I'm not sure the same was true for girls. Outside of work I went on some runs, ate out, went to Thorpe aqua park, walked round Virginia lakes and went into Windsor a lot just to walk round.