Summer scheme student, planning Review

Shortened by the Corona virus I understand the limitations this placed upon the work environment yet I still felt quite bored at times. The tasks seemed menial at times and I just felt a bit left out of everything. Maybe because i wasn't staying a long time, but I felt most days there would be no difference if I was there or not. I didn't look forward to going in and spent a lot of my time bored.

Not that much. Possibly due to the length of my placement but I felt I made no difference to their teams and they didn't really need me. I have no complaints regarding how friendly they were, everyone was pleasant and nobody was nasty or anything like that, but outside my team it did not feel like anybody was making an effort to get to know me, possibly because they knew i was a dispensable resource and wouldn't be here long.

When I didn't understand something, or needed clarification on a job everyone was more than happy to stop what they were doing and help me. Very friendly and great at explaining. Everyone was very friendly regardless of what rank they were or how much experience they had. When i had to do some online zoom calls they always checked that I could log in okay and were more than accommodating with seating arrangements - ensuring that I had a place to sit that was safe within the office because of the corona virus seating restrictions.

Not that busy at all. I had to repeatedly ask people for things to do at least once or twice a day and at times I was sat (like now) for over an hour waiting for them to give me a task. This led to me feeling un-valued and un-important. I did feel like I was wasting my time at some points. Once I had work, it was okay and relatively interesting but didn't feel engaged or stretched.

Not very much responsibility. I felt like the work I was doing made no material difference to the projects I was working on other peoples work load. If anything I felt like I was doing the 'paperwork' that other people didn't want to do. Such as searching through thousands of planning applications for a certain borough to find similar projects to the one the team was working on. I understand that somebody has to do these tasks, and given I am only an intern I would have to do these but i felt it was a huge waste of my skills and talent.

I really thought that this would be a great opportunity to learn new skills and how to operate within an office but I am leaving feeling very disappointed. I honestly have not learnt anything new or how to do anything different to my skill set previously. I feel this was a real wasted opportunity and if i had been engaged with a bit more, given more responsibility and given tasks that stretched me and made me think it could have been a really valuable experience. instead i felt people were fumbling around to find me routine tasks that honestly, a school leaver could have done. Not a recent graduate. A positive is that I now know what I don't want to do.

It is difficult to comment on this because there was restricted seating and limited people in the office as they were operating on a shift rota due to the Corona Virus at the moment. The people I did meet were nice. However, as a woman that did not attend a private school I did feel a little uncomfortable due to the type of people in the majority of the office. I felt that if I worked here full time I would not be able to relate to them or 'get along with them'. I think this is a problem in the property industry that is trying to be addressed, but at times did still feel like an Eton boys club. This may have been different if everyone was in the office, so I cannot comment on the normal feeling there.

The communication beforehand was excellent as well as a through and warm welcome. Yet when I got into my team, I had to repeatedly change seats, nobody had thought about what work to give me and I did feel a bit in the way of them getting about their normal work at some points during the placement. They did have excellent IT all set up and ready for me along with other timetables and a nice welcome pack which was nice.

I think possibly again due to the length of my placement they did not invest in me at all. Having said this, they still could have made more of an effort I feel to teach me some new skills or try and improve my knowledge of certain things that may have been beneficial to me. They may have been too busy to do this, which I understand, but I did not feel like they were trying to invest in me to encourage me to apply for a graduate scheme.

I would not apply to work for this organisation based on my experience in my team at all. However, we did have some presentations on different aspects and different departments and locations within Savills. One of these did appeal to me a lot more than what I was doing and did seem good. Bearing in mind that Savills is such a large organisation I feel like I can not fairly write off working for a different department or location which may offer me a very different experience. The appeal is the size and reputation of their brand which still makes it an appealing place to apply for.

Not really as in my city office there were only 3 of us and because of corona virus there was not much socializing and we didn't really mix with the other office. They did try to organize an after work drink, but I cant drink as I drive home after getting the train so did feel a little bit excluded in that aspect. Also the drinks were help near the other west end office which would have taken a lot of time to get to so wasn't a feasible option for us working in the city.

I commuted in and had a packed lunch so cant really comment

Didn't attend so cant comment

None --> i think because of the Corona Virus