Data Analyst Review

My initial 3 months was probably the most difficult to me as it I got used to a real world office environment along with the responsibilities it came with it terms of using IT applications which has a very steep learning curve but becomes second nature to you. As with all jobs it has highs and lows which it in itself is a learning experience for working in the real world. Most of the staff are supportive which helped to my work placement an enjoyable one.

My direct manager was very supportive and had a lot of faith in my abilities, which did help to bolster my confidence. My working team helped to keep me focused on the tasks at hands while at the same time treating my as I was a valued member, as the placement went on I started to receive more and more praise for the the cumulative work I had done for them which helped contribute to a friendly atmosphere.

My direct manager gave me a thorough walk through on how the company's policy worked and the expectations from each other during the placement. This helped to set clear standards that I would go on to learn and apply throughout the placement. My working supervisor's gave my just enough to get working on projects, but not too much to slow everyone done. This way of working took a while to adjust to but proves to be very useful later on.

I would have fortnightly meetings with my direct manager and his own team based in France over Skype to discuss the projects that his team were working on, which was used as exposure to gain a little more insight into the wider role within the group. I would normally have daily meetings with my working manager to discuss any issues and projects I was to perform. I learnt to best spread out my work, so I would not have bursts of high work loads then periods of low work loads.

I was given responsibilities of a manageable amount from the get go, which in tern grew as I gained experience with their IT systems during the placement. Likewise everyone's attitude towards me was equivalent to it, where I was considered a knowledgeable expert on the system. This gave me freedom to help with client's queries and I could contact my manager if I could resolve it then with my current knowledge, acting as a safety net.

I have gained a lot of real world working skills that is not taught at Universities. The main one being time management with your workload. As you have almost complete autonomy on how you will perform in an office day, I learnt the importance of communication as well, since teamwork is done remotely it was important to have a high level of communication to keep clients informed on what you are doing and to help build trust and confidence in each other.

The office was pretty welcoming to my arrival, with most of my immediate colleagues situated near being friendly and responsive, treating me with the same level of respect as they do for others, this helped to make me feel significant and made the atmosphere inviting. The atmosphere between the undergraduates could have been better though and was no collocation with formally or socially arranged to help us bond together which could was a missed opportunity.

There was a 2 week transition period for us to become acquainted with the company and how my role would work. I am happy that my predecessor made it easy and simple for me to learn as the learning curve is initially quite steep. There were periodic undergraduate meetings set up by HR to try to help us bond, however logistical difficulties made most of the undergraduates avoid these meetings which was a shame and keep have been handled better.

They invested a great deal of training programs in IT systems on a company wide scale which takes a long time to learn, therefore the faith they had in me was large and I managed to give back to the company through new innovation thanks to the good and strong support network I had access to which in term leads a high level of productivity on my side as a result of extensive training invested.

I unfortunately arrived during a period of heavy cost cutting within the organisation. My predecessor was offered an unconditional job offer and an extension to his year placement which I received neither, despite being told by my manager that he would be planning to be offering the same prospects to me. HR claim to offer "graduate" jobs for placement students, but this is slowly going to be less of a case as the company looks to downsize.

There was potential to have a good social scene among the fellow students on placement with 25 in total, however we located in 2 separate offices on opposing sides of Luton, with the majority of them being situated in the main one, leaving I and few situated in a secondary office. That and being combined with no catering for our office position led to very little social movements between the students which could have been easily rectified.

I did not live in Luton, but rather commuted from home. I know that one of my fellow undergraduates did rent a house in Luton, despite being further away from London housing prices a pretty high and there were shops that were few and far between. Combine this and a lack of free parking made living expensive very high for an undergraduate looking to live there, There are a few social venues that you can visit though

Luton is not a very good place for nightlife and does not feel inheritably safe or secure either, therefore most if any social events among the undergraduates involved outside of Luton as it more safe and there more choices to be had. Therefore for any students wishing to apply in the future I would advise getting in touch with your fellow students before starting placement to form safe social bubbles when going out and about in Luton.

HR did run a CSR project that mandated all undergraduate placement workers to perform 2 hours of school based teaching charity approach in order to increase the awareness of the brand. This initiative could have been handled better due a to a lack of choice on what we could do and the materials supplied to us. There was a woman in engineering week but was obviously restricted to the women working on placement to present.