Technical Support Analyst Review

I highly enjoyed my placement as although I was given a huge amount of responsibility and was constantly being challenged the support from my manager was excellent. I learned vast amounts about the industry, project management skills and developed my commercial awareness as well as my engineering knowledge.

I felt highly valued by my colleagues as I felt that I was performing a key task in the department, rather than merely just making cups of coffee. I was treated like a project manager rather than an intern.

Throughout my placement I was responsible for running and organising my own projects. In this role I was required to be very self-starting and was required to use my initiative to solve most issues which I encountered. However whenever I needed guidance or advice my manager was very helpful and provided the right level of support whilst still allowing me to develop my problem solving skills.

As it was my own responsibility to manage my projects and my day, I was usually very busy. However I found this challenge very enjoyable as my day was very varied - from customer meetings, engineering testing to visiting the shop floor.

I was given a huge amount of responsibility as I was solely responsible for the delivery of the projects which I was working on. Throughout the course of my placement I successfully delivered over 30 projects, with a combined value of several million pounds. I was also trusted to represent the company by myself and visited suppliers and hosted customers as the sole GE representative.

I feel that the communications, business and interpersonal skills developed on my placement will be of huge help in my degree and my future career.

The general atmosphere was relaxed but very professional.

The overall organisation of the placement could have been improved somewhat. I was dropped in very much at the deep end and expected to successfully perform as a project manager without much supervision from a very early stage. Luckily my manager was very supportive, but there was not much wider organisation on the site for interns.

I received a large amount of training in various fields whilst on my placement. However this was mainly achieved by me persuading various people to take time out of their day to instruct me, rather than by investment by the wider company.

I feel that I would work back for GE in future, but not at the site where I was based. GE is a fascinating company to work for, but I feel that further career development would be limited at the site and department I was at.

As there were a large amount of interns onsite there was a good social scene with people regularly meeting up outside of work to socialize.

Area was relatively cheap and much cheaper than working & living in London.

Leicester and Nottingham both have a very good night life.

GE runs a huge amount of volunteering schemes from helping in local schools to competing in charity sports events. There was also a fairly active sports club.