Data Science and Management Review

The virtual experience exceeded my expectations completely. Everyone was extremely welcoming and approachable no matter their seniority in the company. Furthermore, I was extremely busy throughout the experience with a wide variety of real work, similar to what an actual job would be like.

I felt very valued throughout the experience as I was given two real business problems that the company was dealing with. Furthermore, I was included in all the daily scrums and given multiple opportunities to present on my work to the wider community within the company. I was also able to meet up 'virtually' with over 15 individuals in a virtual coffee chat which allowed me to gain a greater understanding of how my team fit into the wider business. Lastly a call with the CEO and all the interns was arranged which illustrated how the company did in fact value the interns very highly.

The key thing about the internship was I wasn't spoon fed the answers, but instead given the responsibility to go away myself and research the projects/problems and come up with my own solution. Since the projects both involved coding extensively and I had little to no experience beforehand, I found this invaluable as it allowed me to learn much more in the 6 weeks than I ever thought I could. When I was genuinely stuck, my team gave me support and suggestions on how I could go about overcoming the problems, rather than telling me this is exactly how to do it, which I greatly appreciated.

The experience I gained coding and the methodology in how to balance all the work I had will undoubtedly prove invaluable in my future work. In terms of my actual degree (Mathematics and Physics), the internship has opened my eyes to the importance of statistics in the business world and has motivated me to pick more statistic focused modules this coming year.

The internship was structured fairly well, as there was clear structure within the first week with lots of HR events taking place. As the internship progressed, the structure was much looser with lots of responsibility given to me in terms of what work I was dong and when. A good example of this is that I wasn't given a start and end time for each working day, instead my team trusted me and gave me the responsibility to complete my work and this was a common theme throughout the placement. Consequently, I felt like a valued member of the team and not 'just an intern'.

The atmosphere was incredibly welcoming, something I noticed at the technical interview and the assessment centre in the recruitment process before the internship. It felt like bp had an incredibly flat structure and I had no problem approaching anyone in the business for help or for a 1 on 1 virtual chat just to get to know them better.

I felt that the virtual experience was incredibly representative of what it would be like to have a full time role within bp. Many of my team had already been working remotely/virtually, so the experience would have been the same for me if it was a full time role, except for the commute. The projects I worked on were real problems that the company needed solving and from my understanding have been picked up with from where I left off by the team or even using the final script for its intended use.

The virtual experience really highlighted the company culture as even in a virtual workplace everyone I met was incredibly welcoming and happy to sit down with me and have a chat. The one thing I really took away from the experience was the feeling of family within bp. Everyone wanted to learn more about what others were doing with their work and I didn't come across anyone who was uninterested in helping me if I had any problems.