Software Enginner Review

I mostly did not enjoy the placement as it was not what I expected and what I was told about during my interview. Most of the time I remained on the "bench" (meaning I am currently unassigned and do not have a project to work on). During the year I did work on 2 short term project, both of which was testing. As I hoped to gain development/programming experience during the year, working on only testing was highly disappointing to me. For me and many other interns it was difficult to find any work to do and some even spent more than half of their placement doing literally nothing. [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions]

As I've only been on two short term projects I cannot go into much details about this. It takes a while to get to know your colleagues and most people were friendly and helpful and whilst working I felt like I have something to offer. Sometimes I was get told that I'm doing a great job which felt nice. Because of the age difference(me being 20 and my colleagues 30-50) it is harder to get to know them and feel the same as you would with your friends. [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions]

Support was good, if I had any questions there were numerous people (career counsellor, people advisor, friends) I could contact for help. Regarding the lack of work issue, the support was not too great as everyone was telling us to do the same things (try to apply to as many project as possible, do online training etc etc.). Support around holidays/sick leaves/other issues were great, never had any issues with that. [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions]

As I've mentioned before I barely had any work to do during the whole year because of lack of available roles and projects. Even if some roles were to appear, managers were asking super high skill levels which are impossible to have at intern level. While being unassigned all interns are told to try and do the "online training" that is available from Accenture's learning website. Most of that training is dull and boring unless you are a visual learner. [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions]

Barely any responsibility was given to me and my colleagues (from what I've heard). Interns are treated as low level employees and are their ideas and thoughts are sometimes being [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions] not considered seriously, therefore less responsibility is given to them. The only responsibility that we had was to find ourselves projects and work which was really difficult due to low demand and high skill requirements. [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions]

The two roles that I worked on during my placement were testing roles. Big part why I did a software engineering placement was to gain more experience in software development and programming, [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions] The compulsory training and the two certification that I gained were and will be pretty much useless to me as I don't see myself using that ever in the future. The only training that was useful, was the training that I was doing by myself on YouTube! [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions]

Offices were always full and getting a table (which had to be done via online booking) was very hard, would need to book two weeks in advance. Everyone is always talking and typing and it is very hard to focus on your own work, a lot of the time I left the office with a headache. [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions]

Poorly organised. Had a 2 day induction [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions] about the company, the work, our department, how to find work etc. After that all interns(around 40) got separated into two groups at random. One group which would attend the Java programming training and the other which would attend the "Testing training. We did not get to choose and they did not care whether people had experience of preferred one over the other - another example of Accenture caring only about their needs. After that the first role would be assigned to us and most of us were separated into different projects. After that it was your responsibility to find other work, which most interns struggled to do.

The company only allowed the training that would benefit them and even then that training was compulsory. The training that I wanted to do was not approved due to it not being very relevant to the current project that I was on. During your unassigned time, they expect you to do some online training, whatever it may be, but most of the time I did not even bother with Accenture's resources and went on YouTube to learn something useful to me.

[This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions]

It was easy to get to know each other and make friends DURING THE INDUCTION. After that all of us got separated onto different projects, most of us had to leave the central office(London) and the only means of communication with your colleagues was facebook or WhatsApp, if you happened to grab their number in time.

I lived in London, but most project work took place in other cities, meaning you either had to commute each day, or if you were lucky, you could stay in the local hotel during project work. The hotel is usually paid for and you get some allowance for food. However that was not always the case and these perks depended on the project and the location. The main office was in central London, so you can imagine the food was pricy, especially in the cafeteria. I usually outsourced food from Sainsbury's or home. Again living in London can be expensive, unless you are sharing a flat/house with other people, it will be hard to survive by yourself.

I worked mainly in two places, London and Newbury. You all know that nightlife in London can be epic, though I'm not much of a night and party person. Newbury was a small city and I cant imagine myself finding much to do there, [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions]

Again it was hard to find time for things like that, especially when you work full time in another city or something. If you are local in London you can join and attend some clubs, like wine tasting or football, but I wasn't much of a wine taster or a football player so I tried to meet up with my friends from Uni when I could, but because of them doing their 3rd year and you working full time and sometimes overtime it was difficult to find time for activities.