Summer analyst Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my placement at Atkins, I worked at the Birmingham office as an intern analyst for 13 weeks and the work environment was friendly and professional. I was made to feel welcome by all and I definitely learned a lot.

My colleagues and team mates were one of the best aspects of my work experience. Everyone was friendly and supportive and always willing to help. There was a period of time when I had a severe allergic reaction and a skin infection during my placement and had to visit the hospital/GP several times. It was difficult to get appointments as I had never lived in the city before and had no registration with the GPs there, I felt so bad for missing work! But everyone was very understanding and supportive and gave me the time I needed to get my health in check. Our team also had a few team outings for some bonding time and our office would go for drinks whenever a team member was transferring to another department or were finishing their placement there. It was really nice and felt team spirited.

During most of my placement, several members of my team were off on leave and so most of my team were quite busy and did not have time to give me formal training with the new software/coding I was using. But help was always there if you asked for it, just no hand holding! You are given responsibility of your own learning and the more you ask and tried to get involved, the more you got out of your time there.

In the beginning I wasn't given much client work to do as I was new and was often given documentation to update and check through. But the work load definitely got better as the placement went on and in a few weeks time I was given much more responsibility and felt like I was actually contributing and helping the company.

I was given the right balance of responsibility I believe, especially near the end of my placement, I was doing productive client work where I was performing analysis and checks for their data which was looked over by my project manager before submission. I was also building workspaces (on FME) that was directly used for the checking process for many of the data sets. I felt like a contributing member of the team without being overwhelmed.

I am a 2nd year student of Mathematics so the vast majority of my studies is very theory based so I had little to no prior experience with the type of work I did at my internship. So I learned a great deal of new things like how to use new software (FME) and new coding language (VBA) that I think will definitely help me in future jobs. As well as the technical skills, having done an internship with a great company like Atkins is also definitely going to help me in developing my career.

The general atmosphere in the office was very friendly and professional. Everyone will say good morning and ask about your day and sometimes even ask you if you'd like some coffee!

If there's anything to improve in my internship, it would be that it be a bit better organised. Though the circumstances were difficult to avoid, may of my team members were off during my placement so the team members that were in the office, were very busy and did not have time to show me the ropes. It was difficult in the beginning to get grips of what I was doing because like I said, I did not have any experience as an analyst prior to this internship and I was not familiar with the software and coding I was using. I was often left to my own device and was googling how to do things which is both good and bad because learning things on your own is sometimes better but it is also difficult to know where to look and know what is relevant to learn. So a bit more organisation and guidance would be better.

My time there was very short so this didn't really apply to me but I know they have a graduate development plan for graduates and longer placement students.

Promising, I know at least in the department, they are looking to expand the team. There have been a few starters since my time here. I know Atkins is also a flexible company, once you have worked in one department for a length of time, it is possible to be transferred into other departments and expand your experience with the company.

There weren't many placement students in my department but everyone there was really friendly and I made good friends there who I went out to eat lunches with.

This didn't really apply to me as I as living at a family friend's house but socialising in the area was fairly reasonable. There was plenty to do at Birmingham, the Atkins office is right by Grand Central station and a 10 minute walk to the Bull ring and a 5 minute walk to the canals in the opposite direction! So the office location was definitely great.

Birmingham is a busy city and a lot of places are open till late. Also I was using the new tram system near Grand Central Station everyday which was always fast and reliable!

I was always getting emails about sports events organised by the company (badminton, football, etc) and charity bake sales and things so there was plenty to get involved in !