Rendering Intern Review

My time at TMVS was thoroughly enjoyable from the projects and working environment to the planned social events. Before I started the internship, I had finally decided on which area of computer science I wished to pursue. I was looking for a role in computer vision / image processing with highly mathematical content and TMVS provided exactly what I was looking for. This made me nervous. After several career direction changes I was finally settled and if I didn’t enjoy the internship I would be back to the drawing board. However, by the end of the internship my decision was only reinforced and I was even more excited to start working with computer vision. There was an impressive set of projects allocated to the interns which were all really interesting. They felt important in their own rights and contribute to the domain rather than just to the team (unlike many internships where interns are tasked with more monotonous projects such as writing a tool or utility). My own allowed scope for some individual research and was largely implementing more recent techniques to try and improve upon what TMVS is currently using. The accrued knowledge was extremely valuable to future career prospects and I am very appreciative to have had the chance to work on a fun project. Overall I really enjoyed my summer and TMVS is definitely a place I would consider in the future.

Work colleagues did appear to be genuinely interested in the work I was doing. I would take part in daily team stand-ups, explaining what I did the previous day and what my plans were so I did feel like part of the team. Some of the work I was doing was in direct relation to another colleague. So any results were useful towards their work. The prospect that my work could be used to improve upon existing systems was exciting and helped to motivate me.

Support was available as needed. My supervisor would often check how I was getting on at least once a day if I hadn’t brought up any issues before then. This worked for me as I quite like to give things a good shot on my own first but I knew my supervisor would be there to help if I was truly stuck. My supervisor would also read through the same research papers if I was having trouble and we would go over details of it to make sure we both had the same understanding.

My project itself was quite open in relation to how much I could do providing the base requirements were met. With that in mind, I always had something I could be doing which may have included; research, refactoring, implementation, debugging, evaluation or writing up my results. So, I was kept fairly busy which was good.

Generally, I would directed towards some good papers which seem promising by my supervisor. Together we would make some decisions on which algorithms to implement. From then on, it was mostly my responsibility to read the papers, implement the methods and decide on how I would test them.

The experience gained will directly be beneficial to my future career prospects. The research skills will be useful for my Master’s thesis and the general team dynamic will be applicable to jobs in the future.

The office was very relaxed and made for a great working environment. It was open plane which invites conversation between colleagues. Everyone was friendly and were happy to help.

The internship process was very smooth. I received my project on the first day after various induction talks and I was able to get started. Each month the interns would give presentations to each other on their work so far which was a good way to prepare us for the final presentation to the company.

There wasn’t a massive opportunity for interns as many of the training programmes would start after we had finished which was understandable. There was more general training such as health and safety and fire safety training during my time there. As for permanent employees, there are many opportunities available which may include working in a different department and university courses.

TMVS is definitely a place I would consider working after my Master’s if the opportunity arises. Following the internship we supplied email addresses to be contacted if any new positions are available for us to apply for.

Despite being in different offices and departments, the interns would all meet for lunch each day (sometimes joined by other employees). This was a great way to get to know each other and hear about their projects. Often we would go out for meals after work and I feel like I made some good friends at TMVS. We all plan to meet up again sometime soon.

Edinburgh is a relatively expensive place to live and is difficult to find a place during the festival period which bumps up the price in many areas. I ended up just commuting but I would highly recommend staying in Edinburgh if possible. The prices can be high depending on where you go but the area around TMVS is a little more reasonable.

TMVS is just a 5-10 minute walk away from the shore which is a really nice place in Edinburgh to be.There was a lot of nice pubs along the shore which we would often go to on a Friday to round off the week.

There was several groups in TMVS that would do activities after work or at weekends. Edinburgh itself is a great place to be during the summer with so many things on. The festival brings with it a lot of excitement and many things to do.