IT Summer Intern Review

I have really enjoyed working on my internship. It has never felt like a chore to come in to work. I've always had tasks to get on with and the days have always passed by quite quickly. This has been helped by a really nice work environment. It is quite relaxed and everyone has been lovely.

I feel like I been really valued by my colleagues they all have been lovely and helped me settle in and start to learn quickly. I felt like a member of the team and not just an intern. All the work I had been given has been needed to help big decisions on a daily basis by the Central Leadership Team. So for them to trust me and my work in front of these people has made me feel like I've contributed.

I have always been given excellent support by both my line manager and my supervisor. My supervisor organized weekly catch-ups with me to make sure I was okay and I was getting the most out of my experience with the company. My first meeting consisted of things I wanted to achieve and the follow ups checked upon this progress.

My internship was 10 weeks long. My first week consisted of learning the ropes, the business structure the programs used etc. The next 7 weeks were during a busier period of time for my specific team. I was never made to feel over faced and felt I had the perfect amount of work. My last 2 weeks have been winding down as I have been handing over projects and the testing (The area of IT I am in) is coming to a close, so there is less work to do.

I feel like the small projects I have been given I have had full responsibility for, these being daily reports that I have had to send out to many different people making sure they were sent out on time and that they were to a great standard. As it has been an internship and not a full year placement I have not being given entire project responsibilities as there has not been enough time.

I feel like at the company I have grown as a person. It has helped develop my communication and presentation skills mostly, speaking to people I don't know and making presentations in front of strangers who are influential in the company. It also has improved my organizations skills, prioritizing work being the key attribute I can help take towards my University studies.

The general atmosphere in my office was quite chilled. Most of GSK House consists of Smart/Hot desks. Meaning that no one has a specific work area and you are free to move around to sit in different areas, talk to and meet new people. Everyone I have worked with has been lively and never had a bad word to say about the company. Also there has never been anyone not doing work. I think due to its relaxed approach and hot desks, the atmosphere is also very productive and things such as live meetings do not disturb this.

I think the overall internship has been quite well set up. Speaking with my other interns we have been put in areas of the IT structure that not only suit our degree programs but also our main abilities. In terms of tasks and projects set up for us to do. This isn't the way it has actually been done. It is more a sense that we have been allocated to a specific area, placed with a "supervisor" and then they have given us different tasks daily. Just things that need to be done not specific tasks set for interns. Which I think means it is less organized, but makes you feel more like a member of the team that way.

I haven't had to have any personal training. When you first start at the company there are some mandatory e-Learning courses to do, which your supervisor can add to. However it is also quite a good thing in between tasks to add to your personal development

Future employment prospects within the organisation look good. As the assessment to get a summer internship is the same as the one to join the Future Leaders Scheme, it is said that if you make great progress during your time at the company it is possible to get a place on this Graduate scheme. It may not be the same in every area, but me and my fellow interns completed a presentation to the recruiters for the Grad scheme on what we had been working on, takeaways, skills gained relating to the GSK values etc.

Yes there was. Well definitely within business areas. I didn't really get to socialise with anyone from R&D or anything like that. But with my fellow IT interns, we socialised quite a bit. We met for lunch everyday and did things together as a group on Friday evenings. Which is great really as we didn't all live near London or have a lot of friends here after the university year ended.

The cost of living was the shocking thing that came with this internship. Finding somewhere to live for 10 weeks is an unusual period of time, so was difficult to rent. Luckily I managed to get a room to rent across the road form GSK house which was around £150 a week. Very different from my £391 a month house in Newcastle, but as it is near central london it is understandable. As I only knew interns here (3 others) I didn't do that much socialising but what I did do wasn't over expensive.

I don't really know about the Nightlife in Brentford really. I've been to a couple of pubs in the area but there aren't really any close by restaurants or clubs that I know of. I just preferred to take the tube into central London, where there is plenty of Nightlife and is only 30 mins away.

As I was only here for a short period of time I didn't really get chance to do much outside of work. I got to go to the SSL centre and find out about the company's innovative marketing and visit the worlds largest seamless touch screen. There is also the opportunity to visit GSK's animal testing sites and things such as that.