Analyst Review

My year at IBM was enjoyable, however not being based at Southbank did seem to limit my opportunities to an extent. However despite this, you can still make your own opportunities and there are plenty of people you can reach out to ensure you can enjoy your placement experience outside of your day to day role.

This is very dependent on the effort you show and how confident you are in taking on important responsibilites. During my time at IBM, I was given numerous responsibilties by my colleagues that directly impacted clients. You are definitely not looked at as just an 'intern' but somone who can directly impact the success of IBM.

You are given two managers during your placement. An early profesional manager and a task manager. Throughout my placement I found both are often very busy and this does sometimes prevent you requesting support or guidance as you do not want to feel like a nuisance. This however is not necessarily a bad thing however as it encourages you to take responsibility for yourself.

This is very dependent on the role you do, in my experiance I started of very busy. Working long hours became the norm and I enjoyed this as I felt like I was having a positive impact on the team and IBM. However this gradually declined as my placement went on as I wen through a variety or role's.

This is again is up to you, if you are willing to take on responsibilities then you will get them. However if you are happy to shy away from opportunities, then it is likely you may not get the chance again. During my placement I was given important tasks that had financial impacts for IBM.

Prior to joining IBM, you apply to different placements within the company, Business, finance ect. You often find that the day to day role you actually undertake is very different to the scheme you applied to. For this reason the skills I developed will not impact my degree studies that positively, however this is dependent on the degree you do and what you want to do after you graduate. Additionally the 'badges' you earn during your time at IBM are earned and assessed by IBM, so do not hold that much worth outisde of the company.

My base location was very quiet, however I was not in there often. As I spent most of my time at a client site it is was a very different experience to what a lot of interns would usually recieve. However there was a good team moral and I got on well with my team.

This is done rather independently, your managers may offer you guidance into what you should do but it is up to you to take on training. There are plenty of chances to develop throughout your placement as you often experierance many different tasks. This is reviewed at the 3 6 and 12 month stage to see how you have done

IBM offer a attractive graduate scheme, and you can apply early to this if you are a placment student. You will be judged on what you did throughout the year and will also have 1 or 2 interviews. It is not a given you will get a grad job if you are there on placement.

Again, being based away from Southbank and on client site impacted this. Intern christmas parties and summer socials were organised in London, so you often missed out if you were not based near or could not travel down. When I was in southbank working however the social scene was very good .

Reasonable, I was lucky enough to be able to commute to my work so avoided any expensive rent costs. Socialsing was also inexpensive and there is a large variety of sports clubs available if you wish to get involved in a social sports scene. As a lot of interns will need to be based in/near London however the reasonable prices may not be the case for everyone.