Foundation Business Administrator Review

Being a student, you will always have some mundane, more admin parts to your role, but I think that I had just the right balance of being given responsibility to do a proper job and just supporting the full time employees in my team

I was part of a fantastic team and feel that they treated me not only as a professional (which is nice when there is such a large age gap!) but as a friend

Wonderful PDMs who are always there if you need any help or have any questions - whether personal, to do with university or professional. Such a lovely bunch of people!

It went in peaks and troughs. In busy periods (nearing a deadline) I would work a bit later so make sure that everything was finished but in quieter periods I could focus more on my professional development and training

I was involved in several projects during my time at IBM and could take on as much responsibility as I wanted - during the first few months I was more behind the scenes as I was just getting to grips with what the job involved but by the end of it I had been the lead on several successful events

The skills I have gained are absolutely invaluable and I would thoroughly recommend this placement. You gain so many life skills to prepare you for the real world that you just cannot gain from university.

People were always so friendly and willing to help with any queries that I had, I was working with another student and we have become really good friends throughout our year so would be chatting all day and helping each other out with our work. Also had a really lovely group of students from the scheme that we would go to lunch with

Perfectly organised! Everyone knew where to go on their first day and received all their laptops and badges without a hitch. All training and other days organised for the students were clearly well thought out and always had enough trainers and resources. I felt that the 2, 4, 6 month and end of placement reviews by our Professional Development Managers were the right amount of time apart and that I was given good guidance in my role and development

We had specifically run training days for students for help with writing dissertations and CVs plus interview practice for returning as a graduate. I found these so useful as it started to put everything I have done in my year into perspective of how make skills I have actually gained! I also got to sit in on a few graduate training days just to get a feel for what they learn and what companies look for in graduates

I would absolutely love to go back to IBM on the graduate scheme, they invest so much time and money into it and it is a fantastic place to work

We had so many wonderful nights out with the other students in my location (Hursley) and had a lovely sense of community, we also had 5-a-side football tournaments and played tennis once a week in the grounds

Winchester is relatively expensive for going out in when you're used to student prices (but nowhere near as expensive as London, luckily!)

Winchester doesn't have as good nightlife as universities but still there are lots of pubs and a few clubs and Southampton is a fantastic night out if you go a bit further afield

They have a fantastic range of Giveback opportunities where you can go into the local community and volunteer at all kinds of locations such as schools. There are also quite a few networking events that students can attend to broaden their contacts and find out more about business