Junior Database Administrator Review

The job itself was really good. All of my colleagues were friendly and helpful, and the experience itself I felt was invaluable.

I felt like I was a valuable resource within the team. People would often ask me to carry out tasks if they didn't have the time, or would ask me for help if they needed it for a variety of different things.

I don't think I can fault my management as although they were often busy, they were always there to help and answer any questions. They were very approachable.

Unfortunately the only problem I did have is the workload could be quite erratic; sometimes I would have too much going on and other times I didn't have anything going on.

I felt very fortunate in that my managers trusted me and put faith in me, which perhaps I wouldn't have expected as I was just a placement student.

I believe the skills I most developed were the professional ones, though this is only because the main part of the job (databases) is not an area I feel I'll carry on into. I have however definitely learnt a lot about database administration and management. I would feel confident if I had to take these into a similar job.

The atmosphere was good. I think it was relaxed as you can be in a high pressured field of work. It's obviously not going to be quite as fun and sociable as offices were there is less pressure, but the atmosphere was good. Everyone was friendly towards eachother and also the dress code was casual, which I feel helped.

This would be the only really fault with the placement, though I feel any future placement students would not have the same problems. The reason for this is that I felt the placement had previously been less I.T orientated and whilst I was there I think there was a bit of transition where the placement role became slightly more useful to the team as the student in the role would be doing a computer science course or similar. The start of the placement was quite slow and I found myself with much to do for a lot of the time in the first few months. This changed gradually as I changed managers.

I don't think there was much training as such, I just sort of learnt from other people as I went along. My manager did do mid-year and end of year reviews with me that included targets, so my personal development was something we looked at.

Whilst no formal offer was made, they would find a place for me in their department if I told them I wanted to work there. This is mainly due to the knowledge of the department I have and it would be cheaper for them to train me up on the job than hire an expensive external contractor. So I feel if I did want to go back, the door is very much open.

There were no other placement students in my department so I didn't come into contact with anyone placement students during my time there. Everyone in the department however were very friendly and social, and we went out for drinks a lot after work.

I was living at home and was commuting a long distance to work, so I can't comment on the area really.

Again I was living at home so can't comment in relevance to the job. Brighton is a good place to go out though!

I don't really know what this is asking!