I enjoyed it a lot. I got to do a lot of real work, on projects and was given free reign on a number of things, which made me feel valued as a person. There was also a great sense of community and various social events to keep morale up and give everyone a chance to get to know each other. I found my time at CGI went too quickly, and I could easily have done another year.
The management is excellent, all of the management I have experienced has been very organised, approachable and interested in my placement and requirements. I have taken part in 3 different roles, which have given me a varied experience of the company. I found the student kick-start initiative project to be a really useful tool to socialise with other students, develop myself as an individual, and having the opportunity to explore new technologies.
I found this to be a really valuable experience. The company is great to work for, and I was given lots of opportunities to show my skills and develop not only these but new ones too. The teams I worked for were extremely encouraging and were happy to have me work alongside them on both essential and non-essential work.
I thoroughly enjoyed my placement as I was immediately welcomed in to the company; the members were so lovely. My manager set me up on a variety of rotations in different parts around the business, so I was exposed to many job roles and people in the company very quickly.
Lots of mixed feelings about the placement. I did gain quite a bit of experience and knowledge about working in a large corporate environment and worked with great people. I felt like I mattered in my project and had a sense of responsibility as well, working in support/infrastructure to make sure everything is running good and thinking up ways to improve the IT infrastructure of the project. However, I didn't feel as though I had much of a choice in what I ended up working in and couldn't apply much of what I learned in university to my placement. The other placement students had more 'relevant' roles to a computer science degree such as software development and testing, or
I found it really enjoyable. There was always something interesting for me to do and everyone was very friendly, and all did there best to make a good working environment. There were lots of social activities organised by the company to keep everyone in good spirits, e.g. monthly cake Wednesday's, and organised lunch time walks, as well as a Sports and Social Club that was only £5 a month.
I was not assigned to a project for the first month of my placement, and as I had no work to do I did not find it enjoyable or useful. However, after finding a project, I found the work mostly enjoyable and interesting, but it became repetitive and dull at times. I enjoyed my time with the company overall.