A & DI Review

My placement year has been a really good experience, in terms of the work it has been a bit up and down as it took a while at first for me to settle into what I wanted to be doing but once I joined a team doing work relevant to my degree I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The team I worked with were incredibly kind and friendly, the atmosphere was very relaxed and if I ever had a problem with any of the work I was doing they were all very happy to help me out.

My line manager helped me to find a role that was suited to my degree within the company and from then on my manager really helped me out with the work I had to do and also gave me ideas and pointed me in the right direction for the university assignments I had to complete.

As is the case I suspect in a lot of large organisations you can vary your workload in that you can choose to take on a lot of extra work if you wish which can keep you busy if your role is a bit quite from time to time.

Overall I think I have had quite a lot of responsibility, although at first this was quite daunting further on into the placement I really appreciated that I was doing work that actually mattered.

Although my course does not directly relate to the work I was doing in the company I feel the skills I have developed from working in a professional environment will be invaluable in the final year of my degree and over the course of my career.

The atmosphere varies between offices, in general I have found that the atmosphere in the head office was quite serious, however I spent much of my time in a different London office which had a far more relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere.

There is a well established graduate scheme in the company and the placement students kind of tag on to this in many ways which widened our social circle greatly however there were some cases when I felt I was doing work that was beyond me.

There are a great number of training opportunities available to employees, also if you find a training course that is helpful to your job role often the company is happy to accommodate this.

I am one of the few interns who will not be returning to the company following completion on my degree, however this is no way as a result of not enjoying my placement year but more that the work I hope to do in my career is not available at Atos.

Many of the grads are based at the head office so there is a great social scene there, however all the staff in the other London office which is where I spent 6 months regularly go out after work which I was always included in and really enjoyed.

I lived at home and commuted in to save money as opposed to living in London and since it is London, going out is expensive.

Again, London is expensive.

The graduates were really good about organizing social activities outside of work which was great.