Developer Review

I enjoyed it a lot. I got to do a lot of real work, on projects and was given free reign on a number of things, which made me feel valued as a person. There was also a great sense of community and various social events to keep morale up and give everyone a chance to get to know each other. I found my time at CGI went too quickly, and I could easily have done another year.

I was given quite a bit of free reign on projects, often working independently. There was also a sense that anyone could ask anyone for help, so I could go to someone for help and not feel belittled because they would also come to me for help with something else. There was also a strong sense of comradery, and we would socialize out side of work as well, not just at the Christmas party, but at other events too.

I was given quite a bit of free reign on projects, often working independently even before Covid-19, however there was always someone I could go to with questions. I never felt embarrassed to ask for help, as I knew others would ask me fore help too, which also made me feel like they valued my input. We had a open layout structure to the office, so no one was in a private room, so I was sat opposite my manager, which made it very easy to ask for help of quickly.

Some days were busier than others. I never felt overwhelmed, or overworked. Some days I would stay late to finish something, but it was always by choice. On other days I would leave early as well, so it always balanced out in the end. Whenever I was nearing the end of one project things would slow down a bit, however as soon as I moved on to the next one they would pick up again.

My first project was aiding in the design of two websites and creating them. I was the only developer on these sites, and while the first one I was simply told what to make, the second one was a more discussion based development project, with me given more input and responsibility over the development process. My later projects, I was asked to create something to a specification. As long as it did the job specified in the design spec, I could follow my own coding style, providing it was accepted by "StyleCop".

All of the programming languages I learnt at University proved useful, as even if I didn't use those exact languages, the more you know the easier it is to learn more. I had previously learnt Java, HTML, JavaScript, PHP, and SQL. I used SQL and JavaScript a lot, I used HTML a bit, and while I didn't use Java I needed to learn C#, which it turns out is almost identical. The more languages you know, the easier it is to learn more, so learn as many different ones as you can. My Team Project module was worse than useless and nothing like the actual world of work. My other group work module, Human Computer Interaction, was a far closer resemblance to the real world of work, and more useful in preparing me for it.

It was always quite fun and fairly relaxed. We had a nice coffee area where we could go to relax and we would take breaks and chat to one another. Once a month we had Cake Wednesday, which everyone enjoyed, and we would stop working for 15-20 minutes to chat and eat cake -or that was the idea, although some people would just take their cake back to their desk and keep working. We also had cakes/cookies on Monday once a month with our monthly stand up, where people could talk about any blockers they had.

Apart from a bit of "death by PowerPoint" at the beginning it was all pretty seamless. There were catch-ups every couple of months where all the placement students got together with the leaders of the placement scheme and talked about how we were getting on, if anyone had any problems, if everyone felt they were getting enough work to do, and so on. We would also get to go on socials together, and there was a Student Kickstart Initiative, where we got to form teams and manage and run our own project, from start to finish.

I was given free access to the online learning resources our company had and encouraged to use them for my own benefit as well as to learn new technologies and software for projects. The online resources were used for everything from security training to personal development.

I've been offered a job with them when I graduate which i have accepted.

The Sports and Social club is great. Anyone can organize an event providing they get enough support, and the Sports and Social club will subsidize it. I even organized a Cocktail Making Workshop of my own, that was so popular that the waiting list was as long as the number of available spaces. And everyone had a great time and were asking when the next one would be! There were all sorts of events from Christmas Lunch, Theater, Whiskey Tasting for Burns Night, to Go Ape and Golfing.

I was in Reading, so it was a bit pricey, however the Sports and Social club subsidized events so all i had to do was pay to get there. Living was pricey too, but I was on a reasonable salary for a placement students, so was able to afford a place to rent that wasn't too far out by car, just a 15 minute drive away from the office, providing I missed the rush hour. Public transport wasn't great from where I was living though, so having a car was definitely preferable.

I'm not much of a nightlife person so not a great question for me. I hear that Reading isn't too bad for clubbing, and its a short hop on the train to London if you want a bit more.

The Sports and Social club was often organizing an event or two, and if nothing took your fancy you could always organize an event of your own, providing you had at least 5 people interested. I took part in Go Ape, Christmas Lunch, organized a cocktail masterclass, and would have been going to ISky (indoor skydiving) but it was cancelled due to Covid-19. If you liked Golf you'd have been all set too, as there was clearly a keen golfing group there as there were lots of golfing events. There was fireworks night at a race-course, and a project annual social.