Intern Review

This was the best internship I have done: the work was genuinely interesting, the quality of mentoring great, and the general social experience of being an intern very good.

I had my own mentor, who checked up on me several times every day and was also always available to help if I had any questions (I did this a lot, and he never said he was too busy for me). My manager was also very helpful, having informal chats with me about my experience almost every day, and more formal status meetings once a week. All this made me feel very well supported.

I always had a project on which to work, so didn't get bored. I was set deadlines, but the regular check-ups with my manager meant that they were quite fluid. I sometimes felt that I had quite a lot to do, but never felt any pressure to work extra hours or anything like that.

I was in charge of planning and executing my own project. However, my mentor reviewed all my work, so there was no risk of accidentally doing something horribly wrong. I felt like I had responsibility, but not the most serious kind.

I came in having absolutely no programming experience, and can now use multiple different coding languages, which I'm sure will be an extremely valuable skill.

The atmosphere was good. I worked in one of the smaller offices, which meant that I knew most of the people who were around. I especially liked my whole team being in one corner of the office, because that made it easy to ask for help but also to have quick breaks to chat.

The company invested a lot on me. They gave me my own mentor who had time allocated for just helping and teaching me every day. I also took part in a communication course, and received lots of useful feedback (including an "individual development plan") to help me improve in the right areas.

This was one of my favourite things about the internship. There were a lot of interns, perhaps 30, and a lot of us shared houses together so it was easy to get to know them. The company put on several socials for us, and because it was such a nice group, we organised many more ourselves.

The company provides subsidised housing that was extremely cheap (especially compared to general London rates). Living in Enfield wasn't too expensive either - the main costs came from travel into Central London, and any socialising there.

This is the disadvantage on living in Enfield. There are a few nice pubs, but only one club which I didn't go to but which is apparently quite bad. London is relatively close, however, so that makes the prospects of going out slightly better.