intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It was a week long internship with civil service as part of their early diversity internship scheme for Black and Minority ethnic students. The first day was an opening ceremony in Oval and the rest we spent at our respective departement; for me this was international trade.

Due to the fact that I only spent a week with the department it is hard to gage whether the work I was given was important as I was not there long enough. However, the input I gave during meetings were praised and I felt listened to and appreciated by them all.

The opening ceremony provided a key role in making us understand what the process would be like. With this knowledge the following few days were clear. We all also were given a mentor, a fast streamer who volunteered, who looked after us, gave us presentations and we shadowed. My mentor was a pleasure to be around.

The week required me to do a presentation at the end in front of my co-interns, fast streamer mentors and head managers. Through this I gained skills in independent research, practise, presenting as well as how to answer very specific questions on key topics in front of a critical audience.

I enjoyed the week structure. Day one as the opening ceremony was very good, it allowed us to meet other interns and network which was good practice. The following few days were meticulously planned with talks, presentations and non stop meetings. It was a jam packed week and I really appreciated that.

The general atmosphere of EDIP in my home office: the department of international trade was amazing. I got to see the friendly work place environment in the face of great work; in a mist of the Brexit negotiations being written up. This made my experience unique and definitely a memorable time.

I was taught great skills that I feel will benefit me in my personal and professional ife. I felt that the skills i learnt in the first week greatly benefited me and the effort was clearly there in making sure I felt like this with regular feedback and meetings with my mentor.

Due to the fact that the term was only one week long it is hard to determine how a full time role would be in the department. However, after talking to much of the staff and staff who recently joined and staff who joined many years prior, I gained a holistic view on the job.

Again, Due to the way the week was organised, we spent more time in presentations and meetings, it was hard to gage something as complex as culture. But with the advice of many of the workers it was clear there was a sense of comradere. The diversity also indicated a good culture.

Very. I wanted to do EDIP in order to gain knowledge about the civil service and I got exactly this. Without the internship I would have been confused as it is such a large co operation. Nonetheless, the week allowed me to gain key information useful for applying to the fast stream.

Travel was reimbursed. And for those of whom needed to stay, their accomodation was sorted out and reimbursed.

The fast streamer I had took great care to introduce me to different people; making sure that I felt comfortable in the conversations he was apart of. This casual networking was great. I was also taken on a tour by him which allowed me to further build rapports with those on the floor.

There were many networking and several good social events with fellow interns going on as a result of the opening and closing ceremony. Both allowed getting to know eachother. The mentor relationship also allowed us to network with fast streamers. In general the networking was casual rather specific formal events.

Not particularly. This was due to the intensity of the week, it didn't leave much room to discuss our of work or social events. However, I remember mY fast streamer mentioning social activities; We were told about various activities such as sports and charity work they do together as a department.

I would absolutely recommend and have recommended applying to the early diversity internship scheme. The programme, fellow interns, mentor and overall this experience has been the best I have had so far and I believe that other people would be able to benefit from it immensely as well, particular BAME students.