Technology Summer Analyst Review

The internship was okay when I had work to do but was ultimately spoiled by long periods of sitting at my desk doing nothing. I did however manage to develop some new software engineering skills and did get to see what it is like to work in a large technology company.

My colleges made me feel somewhat valued however they were so busy with their own projects and work that they could not spend much time with me whenever I needed help. There were however good attempts made to make me feel like a member of the team by including me in team meetings, reviews, etc.

My manager and other colleagues on my team were often very busy so they could only provide me with a minimal level of support during the internship. A graduate on my team was very good however and was able to offer me a good deal of support and guidance throughout the internship. The HR department was also very good at dealing with any requests I had.

I often had very little work to do for long periods of time during the internship, I would ask my manager regularly for more work but was usually met with responses such as "read about X on google" and other nebulous things rather than being given anything concrete to do.

Very little responsibility, I was told when starting on my team that it wouldn't be worth training me to do the actual work of the team as the internship was too short, and as such I would be given side projects to do instead. Unfortunately these side projects often felt more like things designed simply to keep me busy rather than anything that would actually help the team.

I was able to further develop my Java skills (particularly user interface development) as well learn some basic SQL and VBA. I was also able to learn about Agile software development methods. These skills should help me with programming modules in my final year as well as in any future software development jobs / grad schemes.

The HR department organised the internship very well, there were regular events for interns to attend inside and outside of work as well a mid and end of internship reviews with all the interns. Within my team organisation was less structured and I was mostly left to my own devices to structure my work and set my own goals.

Training was mostly something I had to do myself as my team were too busy to provide me with any real on the job training. I would often need to use google and company resources to learn about the technologies and software development tools my team was using. However, the resources the company provided were quite good so this was not that much of a problem.

The night-life was overall reasonably good, there was a good range of large clubs to go out at the weekend to and smaller bars to grab a quick pint (there were some particularly nice ones along the beach front) and the prices were on the whole reasonably cheap. There were also some good restaurants and cafes.

There were a huge number of opportunities to get involved with activities outside of work. The HR department put on a huge number of social and networking events for interns to attend (all with free drinks of course) throughout the internship. There were also a good number of sports clubs and volunteering opportunities for interns to get involved with.