Human Resource Management and Logistics Internship Review

I enjoyed my placement to a great extend as the whole experience really developed me to better myself. I got to learn things that you don't usually learn at university and improve on skills that will benefit me in both academic and professional careers. It also allowed me to change as a person and became more mature.

BMW Group is a really good place to have an internship as they place a great value on their interns. They see them as equal, and if trust is gained they can even view you as leaders. They never look at interns as students. They believe they can learn a lot from their students and give them a great deal of responsibility which makes us feel very valued at the end of the day.

During my second half of the internship in BMW Group, I recieved tons of support from all my colleagues. Most importantly I got a lot of support from a higher manager which felt really comforting as being a student in such a big and improtant company makes you feel small and sometimes left stressed. This is why I felt supported and protected all of the time as I had great support and at time felt as if I had mentors and life coaches!

During my internship at MINI, the business came through waves as some days I would be more relaxed with doing the work I had to do but some other day's would be tight with time and would have to prioritise and leave some tasks for the next day. This however was a good way to work on my prioritising and organisational skills. In my second internship at Rolls-Royce Motorcars, I had a lot more responsibilities and was included in projects which took a lot of time to complete. The internship as always started slow but once the ball started rolling and I was assigned more and more projects, I must say it was super busy! Especially near the end of my internship!

I was given a lot of responsiblity during my internship as I was assigned to projects and tasks that felt like were very crucial. Especially in my second internship at Rolls-Royce Motorcars, a lot of the projects were production critical. This was really nice and I very much liked it as it makes you feel like you are actually contributing to something in your internship.

I will forever be thankful for taking part in a placement year as the skills that I developed this year and the things I learned do not compete to what I study. My degree is not relevant at all in my second internship and that was fine because you learn everything you need to learn on the job! Your degree shouldn't hold you back to applying to internships. I definently used skills and various things I learned during my studies however I think the biggest feedback was what I learned during my internship and that will for sure help me with my degree. My organisational skills, my time managament, my peoples skills all improvement greatly improved, as well as skills that will help me in my career and in life in general.

The atmosphere in the office was professional but at the same time people would be cheerful and make jokes. This was something I really liked because in both my internships, there was a lot of pressure especially in Logistics as the department was production critical. Therefore when it was really stressful, it was nice that people could make others feel better. At the same time, having friendly people all around you was really nice as you could have a different working relationship by making jokes and being friendly with each other.

I had to complete two types of training during my internship that all employees complete. Despite not having formal training done, having to use new systems during my internship and learning them from scratch was training in itself. I can say that the company did invest in me as they did make sure that I learn the basics and develop as a person as well.

The social scene at both MINI and Rolls-Royce Motorcars was really good as both companies had a lot of interns. It was really nice to have interns around as we all started from the start and we were able to rely on each other for help. I got to meet a lot of new people my age from universities from all around the world. The social scene amongst my colleagues was also really good as we had a christmas party and we would have had a team outing if it wasn't for COVID-19.

The cost of living during both my internships was really expensive however we would still socialize a lot! During my second internship it was a little better as my rent was not as high. This however did make me aware of how I should budget myself and was a really good experience to have.

The nightlife at Oxford was really fun and really good as it is a city with 2 universities so there are a lot of places to go to. The nightlight at Chichester was not as good as its a small town so there was only a couple places you could go to.