Communications Intern Review

I've very much enjoyed my year placement. I've been given plenty of responsibility over the year and have been able to get involved in a range of opportunities within the company. Being based at the Ampthill site was great as it is a large site with plenty going on. Everyone is very welcoming and I would recommend the placement to anyone else looking for some excellent experience in a successful and innovative company.

My manager was extremely good at making sure I had a range of opportunities and plenty to do in my role. Everyone I've met here at the Ampthill site has been very helpful and friendly. Only a couple of individuals treat you as if you are just "an intern", everyone else has treated me as a normal employee with experience.

My manager was my biggest support over the year - she provided me with plenty of opportunities and responsibility. If I ever needed guidance, my manager provided it and was never too busy to answer my questions. My manager was also very supportive of any university work I had to get done over my placement year and gave me the time to complete any tasks I had.

The amount of work I had on varied over the year placement. There were busy periods and less busy periods. I like being busy so would often ask my manager for more work if I felt I had less to do. She would always provide me with more to do so I was never bored. There were some very busy periods, however, this usually meant we were working on something big as a team and it felt good to be part of something important.

I was given lots of responsibility over my placement, I organised events from start to finish and if I wanted to take on a project and lead it, my manager was happy to let me do so. I wanted a placement with plenty of responsibility so I am pleased I got lots of opportunities to use leadership skills and manage smaller projects.

Over my placement year, I've developed a range of skills from time management to leadership. My confidence to deal with a range people and present to people has increased. All of the skills I have improved over my placement year I will take with me back to my degree and future job roles. I believe they will be very useful and will make me more focussed and more equipped to finish my degree.

Everyone in the office was very friendly, it is open plan so you meet a range of people. There are busy periods where everyone is quieter but this is understandable and helps everyone focus on work. The office get together to celebrate various occasions such as birthdays and Christmas so there is plenty of fun to be had!

The internship is fairly well organised in it's set up. I did not have much information prior to starting the internship, it would have been nice to perhaps been put in touch with other placement students. Once I started the job it was all fairly straightforward and I was given a buddy to help me settle in.

I was offered an excel course. I also asked to shadow various other roles in the company and my manager helped organise that and was happy for me to spend some time learning about other roles in the company. I was keen to shadow an international team at a different office and my manager allowed me to do that and was very supportive of that development opportunity.

Unfortunately, there is not a graduate role in the area that I work in, however if I wished to I could apply for various other roles in the company. It is a shame that this is the case as it would be preferable to return to the role that I enjoy.

Yes, there are many graduates and I became good friends with them. There are fewer year-long interns so it is good to be able to mix with the graduates. There are quite a lot of summer interns so when I started I became good friends with them for their time here.

The cost of living is not bad in the area that I work in. There are more expensive places but plenty of reasonably priced areas as well. Socialising is also a fair price. Not as expensive as London and quite affordable on the wage I was paid.

If you wanted to go out and party - there were plenty of places to go! Lots of bars and pubs, few nightclubs but you could still have a late night and lots of fun. All the bars are close together which is very useful and reasonably priced. Work is a good location to go to the pub after work as well. Nearby village has plenty of pubs for evening drinking.

I joined the badminton club and ended up running it about 3 months into my year placement. There are also lots of other sports clubs including basketball, rounders (in summer), football and golf. Apart from sports there was not too much to get involved with. There are no big work social events apart from the Christmas Party.