Intern Developer Review

I really enjoyed my internship as a developer at Sparx. The work was interesting and challenging. I enjoyed applying the skills from my degree to the real world. Everyone at the office was friendly and welcoming with there being a variety of evenings out and the workplace atmosphere being great.

I felt very valued by my colleagues. I had frequent reviews to ensure that I was getting on well with the work and was often told how useful and valuable the result of my project would be. I was treated as any other member of the Sparx development team and my thoughts and opinions were respected because of this.

I was given lots of support by management. I was given a project to work on over the course of the eight week internship. For this I was given guidance and help whenever it was required, but was also very independent and had the freedom to make design decisions and schedule my work.

I always had work to do every day but was never overloaded. As I was working on an individual project the goals I was set were for longer periods of time. This meant the work for each day was all that I could do towards the project. I often had meetings and reviews but never so many that I could not get on with my normal work.

I was given lots of responsibility on my placement. I got to make design decisions and lead requirements gathering meetings. The order that I implemented features was also my decision (of course with advice and approval from my line manager). Even the languages and technologies that I used were my decision.

The skills I learned will be very useful in the future workplaces. I gained a lot of experience about web application development including knowledge of frameworks and languages. Some of the skills will also assist me in my degree by giving me a better idea of how some of the theory is applied.

The general atmosphere in the office was one of smart people getting on with interesting work. The culture was relaxed with there being time for coffee breaks with pool and table tennis/football. It was also one of enthusiasm, with everyone helping each-other out in doing the best they can with their work.

The internship was very well organised. I was given a full induction on my first day and was given my project specification on my second day. I had meeting with all of Sparx's departments to learn how the company operates. Throughout the internship I had meetings with HR to check that everything was running smoothly.

The firm invested a fair amount in my in terms of personal training and development. I was given a session on using Macs and was often given advice on how to use different technologies and systems. There was less formal training in he programming languages and frameworks; this was not an issue for someone like me with a programming background.

The organisation seems to be hiring at the moment.

There was a great social scene. All of the interns lived together in student accommodation that was empty for the summer and was provided as part of the internship. This meant that strong friendships have formed and lead to us doing lots of things together during the internship eg cinema, meals out.

Exeter has no issues in terms of cost of living and socialising. The accommodation was packaged as part of the internship so there were no problems there. Food for lunch was provided by Sparx and food for other times was reasonably priced. Going out is the standard price for outside the South-East.

Exeter has good nightlife. There are numerous pubs and clubs which we have visited with and without our office colleagues. There is also a board game cafe which we enjoyed visiting. Exeter is perhaps lacking the variety you would find in a bigger city but this was not a problem for me.

There were loads of activities outside of work. The office ran an Olympics event which involved there being lots of sport events being ran which we were invited to take part in. Exeter has lots to do at the weekends - it is only 30 mins to the beach and is also very close to Dartmoor which is great for walks and views.