Analyst Summer Placement Review

I have certainly enjoyed the placement more than I thought I would as I was nervous about spending 10 weeks of my summer holiday working for Centrica in Staines. I would definitely recommend it as it was a brilliant experience and I'm very glad that I chose to do it.

I felt extremely valued by my colleagues and they certainly made me feel a part of the team I was working in. Everyone was genuinely interested in my thoughts and opinions on certain discussion points and I feel that they saw me as a colleague who was doing exciting work rather than an intern to give admin work to.

My manager was less involved than I was expecting. Although this gave me even more responsibility and freedom to develop the projects I was working on in my own way. It certainly has helped me gain confidence and taught me that a manager is there more as a guide than a teacher.

It varied from day to day. Some days I would have my head down all day working on my projects and the time would fly by. Other days were a little slower, however there was always something to be done or be doing. I never felt too nervous about upcoming deadlines as I was given plenty of time to complete my projects.

I was given a lot of responsibility to work on real world projects and given the freedom to develop them myself. I was given rough end goals for the projects although these changed as the projects developed and opened new doors. It was more responsibility than I was expecting an intern to be given.

Throughout the placement I have certainly developed my problem solving and analytical abilities. This is because I have been able to step back and look at different and new ways to potentially solve issues or start a project. I have also learnt how to balance multiple projects at once which will certainly come in handy in my continued studies next year.

The general atmosphere of the office was a lot more relaxed than I was expecting and it gave me a great insight into how people work and act in an office environment. It was definitely a workplace that I felt comfortable in and I hope to work there again in the future.

The internship was clearly organised well and they put a lot of effort into making the scheme as engaging as possible. The organised extras such as a development day where we did lots of team building activities including rock climbing and they set up a presentation and public speaking development session that was very useful.

I feel that they invested a lot of time and resources in myself and the other interns through various training and development activities. Highlights include excel training sessions at the beginning of the internship, a development day half way through which included lots of team building activities and finally presentation and public speaking training.

There were plenty of opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work such as a day with an engineer. I also managed to get involved with a group of colleagues that played 5 a side football every Wednesday evening after work. There were a few pub visits organised and even a charity walk where we stopped at various pubs on the way.