associate Review

Overall I liked my placement very much. Sometimes I was left on my own to complete work when it was a bit confusing. But most of the time people were friendly and helpful. I really liked the chance to start a career type role whilst at university.

I felt quite valued by colleagues. As said on one or two days I didn't meet or talk much with the people I was working with. However they were very busy and I did have other contacts who I could go to. In this way my buddy Chris was a great person to talk to or email.

At the beginning of a task I was given good support as my managers would explain what the job was I had to do and how it fitted in to the bigger project. This was really interesting and it helped understand why what I was doing was important. As said I did not always link in much afterwards.

I was kept very busy and on a daily basis. On my first day I had a quiet spell as I learnt about the office and did a tour around. From the next day and onwards I was kept busy on my laptop all the time. I realised how busy it is to work at the firm, should I go back.

I was given a lot of responsibility. I found that on the second day I was going proper work and not just copying, checking and ticking work. I did some of this on other days. I always felt there was more to do and I did ask for more work when I had finished tasks. I was told to do this at the induction and it was good in terms of finding out more and having responsibility.

What i did is not linked all that much to my degree so it is difficult to say. I think with training, I learnt a lot of new things to do with software and producing documents which I will take into what I do at university so this was very helpful.

The atmosphere was quite dull at times in the office and people were quiet and busy at their desks. This was one surprise as I thought a lot of people would be working outside the office. When I linked in with my team we would have teas and go into meeting rooms and that was good.

I thought the placement was very well organised. This is mostly because I always had work to do and was very very busy for the 3 weeks I was working. It felt like longer but in a good way! From the begining to the end it was a good set up.

At the beginning of the summer scheme I had a central induction in a nice hotel which was imoressive. We all enjoyed our time there and I met some good friends who I stayed in touch with after. On this I had a lot of training around the work, with talks on commercial awareness I think which was interesting. We did some group tasks then too and those two days were excellent.

I have applied for the conversion into a job after university. I am waiting for a final interview but I think I will be booked in soon. I am keen to go back and work more and hopefully stay on the projects I was working on. This is appealing certainly as I have exams later in the year now to focus on too.

There was a really good social scene and I stayed in touch with the starters from my office after the work ended as well. During the three weeks we met up for lunch or a drink after work and chatted about the work we were doing. This was very interesting, to hear what they had done as well.

Where I was based it was not too expensive to commute and I enjoyed walking in to the office when I could, in the good weather we had. When I was based away from the office I had to commute more but the cost of this was reimbursed so it didn't matter.

I did not see much of the nightlife

When I spoke to people in the office some said how they were members of clubs and societies. One person on my team was taking part in a charity challenge and this wounded really interesting and the kind of thing I would like to do as well.