Project Management Summer Intern Review

I did enjoy my placement with BAE systems. Working within the Type 26 project presented a number of opportunities throughout the duration of the 12 weeks. The work came in peaks and troughs, but the diversity and lenght of the projects helped me to stay enthusiastic and motivated. My manager gave me a good mixture of independent learning tasks and structured objectives.

Throuhgout my time at BAE systems, i never felt less valued by other employees. There were many times when the floor was so busy (the project is really picking up pace) that i felt a little apprehensive about asking certain questions or approaching people, but on the whole I feel my opinion was valued and taken into consideration whenever i made a worthwile suggestion.

My manager throughout the time was very helpful. He went through the graduate scheme a few years ago so was pretty clear with regards to the setting of obejctives and making sure as interns we got what we wanted out of the internship as much as BAE systems got something out of the internship. At times, as I said before the workload for my manager was very pressurized which meant I had to work a little harder to find the answer to something. In sayiing that, if i ever wanted to schedule some time in the diary or catch up he would be more than happy to do that and would always find time.

It varied week upon week, for the first few weeks i was busy all day, then it cooled off for a couple of weeks then it picked up again. As a sumemr intern my manager was quite intent on me delivering my objectives, rather than starting a project and leaving before I could finish it. Overall I had four main projectsand several smaller side projects to carry out during the internship and would say there were only a few occassions where I had nothing to do.

As I said earlier, responsibility varied, at times i felt i had a good level of responsibility and others zero. At such a large company like BAE, there are quite a few procedures to go through or that need to be signed off so it's not always difficult to go ahead with something without prior approval. Again, a company like BAE has certain expectations and deliverbles that are classified. As summer interns we have to respect that and I guess the responsibilty will reflect this.

I had already completed a year long placement before this internship as a part of my degree, so a lot of the skills I enhanced rather than developed. Nonetheless, skills that developed included: project planning, contingency planning, stakeholder engagement, team working, mitigation procedure planning and risk planning. I will go on to study a masters, skills I have developed will help me to look at things from a different angle to help see 'the bigger picture' and not automatically rush into something without thinking of viable alternatives.

Very busy. Usually the start of the week people are loud and rushing around, as the week picks up its gets quiter and by Friday it's very quiet indeed. Everyone in the office is friendly though, and doesn't seem to be too many ego's floating about. People are open to answer any queries and just have general chats. The only problem with my office is there is no air conditioning and for the two hot weeks we had this summer it was very hard to concentrate and stay motivated.

The set up was good. BAE is obviously a huge company so are able to invest substantially in the set up of intern programmes. There was a structure from day one (e.g. providing laptops, talking through the structure, initial intern conferences, final intern conferences) this meant we were never confused about what was going on. I feel at times there could be more strecth assignments for interns to do, and potentially to help the interns from different sites communcate a bit more. Overall I feel it was good and thee was always support whenever you needed it.

Well, I didn't go to any external training courses as they did cost quite a lot of money that my business unit would have had to cover but in terms of time, people in the team were happy to help. Like I said before people were very often busy so I had to work around their schedules. BAE have a very comphrehensive online training portal and have hundreds of courses you can do when you have any spare time. As interns the company emphasises that they want you to come back as graduates and I feel the pay offered is good and reflective of this. If you show interest theres opportunity to visit different sites and go to see ships. We spent the day in Portsmouth and got to see a large chunk of the Navy's fleet including T45's and T23's which was pretty cool.

Reasonably good. As a summer intern even if you really impress your manager there is no way to skip that graduate recruitment process, however you can skip some stages and go straight to the assesment centre. The grad scheme looks good and something that I will apply for during my last year at uni. I've spoken to my manager and he is satisifed with my work and will recommend for me to skip those stages.

I worked in a very close group during my internship with two other interns. We got on really well which was great and meant we could all help eachother on the projects we were involved in. We had lunch with other interns in Filton as well which was interesting as we got their experiences (we were project managers and they were engineers) and could compare

I lived at home, luckily didn't have to pay rent. However i managed to justify to myself the money i didn't spend on rent could be spent on other pointless things. Bristol has loads of stuff to do, so socialising is easy and from experience I know my friends say you can find 'cheapish' acomodation. The better locations (clifton, redland) are quite expensive though.

Bristol has sweet nightlife, all the way from the triangle, to gloucester road to stokes croft. Literally any type of music Bristol has it. Loads of bars and restuarants as well. Us interns went to a pub quiz a few times throughout the placement which was fun. Saturdays and Fridays are always buzzing around the centre.

I was already playing tennis and cricket outside of work. But to my knowledge there arent ay activities the company runs. This was a little annoying as I was quite keen to play a bit of 5-a-side after work once a week. My team would hold socials maybe once a month, usually a meal out and then drinks afterwards. This was fun and gave everyone a chance to get to know eachother in a more relaxed and comfortable environment.