Summer Intern Review

It was a very interesting placement, coming in with an engineering degree it allowed me to see a different type of engineering which is lifecycle management. I enjoyed learning new things in this area as well pushing myself to teach these new things quickly and efficiently and delivering work at a high level.

Everyone was very welcoming and nice. I believe the first few weeks was a test in the way that the work given is not too heavy to allow you to settle in and get a feel for the job however as time went on I believe the work got tougher and I felt more valued as the piece of work I was doing was dependent on someone else needing my finished product.

I was always given sufficient amount of support but not enough to guide me through everything. This allowed me to always have someone for support but not be reliant on a particular person to help me out. I was encouraged to network and see other areas of the firm which I believe was one of the most important aspects of this placement.

Some days were very slow whereas some days were very busy, this really depends on the function you are in as well as your willingness to go and ask for more work to stretch yourself. However, even in the less busy times there are plenty of online material to look up on and test yourself.

The responsibility in my placement was great as I was the conference lead on the summer internship conference. This allowed me to run a team and prepare an event to around 50 people which included organisation, interpersonal and leadership qualities. Also, the work I did had a direct effect on the rest of the project.

I believe my skills in areas such as life cycle management were imporved, I do not think this is useful for my studies at university greatly but will definitely be useful when I start work as from what I saw in BAE there is a lot of work done in the background which is not necessarily taught at university.

The atmosphere is nice. There is an obvious age gap where most employees are over the age of 50 but they are all very welcoming and there is quite a lot of humour in the office. Sometimes it felt as things were moving slow which could have been due to the atmosphere not creating a working buzz.

The internship was well organised and a clear plan was set out by your line manager as to what you will be doing and how often you will have meetings. Catch ups with the wider interns were also included. Work wise, it really depends on the project you are a placed on.

I believe the firm invested enough in me. Working in an engineering firm, 12 weeks is not a lot of time to impact the any piece of work greatly but when asking for things such as advice, tours, meetings, everyone was very responsive and always agreed to meet with me to discuss different points.

Future opportunities are vast. As BAE is so big and has so many people working within the ranks that are close to retiring, I am expecting a large inflow of new apprentices and graduates. With this there are new projects arising which allow new talent from all backgrounds to join the firm.

All interns were friendly; everyone got along very well and helped each other out with irritating admin and IT problems. There was a real sense of community within the interns as everyone is on the same boat and everyone is trying to secure a graduate role after the internship finishes.

Not too expensive. I paid £95 a week.

Heard it was alright

I don’t know of many but I’m sure if you ask around there would be things you can get involved in. there was a gym pretty close to my flat and where there were frequent classes going on as well as a friend that joined a table tennis club so I’m sure if you look around there will be a place for you.