Summer Intern Review

I enjoyed my summer internship at DSTL. The work I was doing was interesting and relevant and I was kept busy throughout the duration of my stay. My colleagues were friendly and helpful. I also had a good relation with the other summer students and we regularly socialized together after work.

I felt valued by my colleagues but the majority of the work I did was quite independent so I did not get a lot of opportunity to get to know them better. They were happy to spend some time explaining new concepts to me and discussing the work that they did.

I always had plenty of work to do during my summer placement as I had numerous tasks on the go.

I felt I was given quite a bit of responsibility. I was working on tasks and projects that would be applied and that colleagues depended on. The work I was doing was challenging and of a technical nature and there was no low level tedious work such as proof reading documents.

I learnt both technical and soft skills that will help me in my degree and in later work. I improved my skills in Python in particular using the opencv library. I also improved my time management and my communication and teamwork skills when presenting my work in person and through reports.

The atmosphere was welcoming and friendly and there was a good balance between being focused and relaxed. My placement was during the summer so there were some weeks where the office was quite empty which meant it was a bit too quiet at times. There was minimal office politics and most people seemed to get along well.

The placement was generally well set up. It took a long time to get security clearance which meant it was quite last minute for me to book my accommodation and I started later than I had initially wanted to. Once I had started it was well organized and I was given work straight away.

There is a good grad scheme which lasts two years and an offer of subsequent summer placement. The work is interesting and varied and there is a good work life balance. The pay is lower than an equivalent job in the private sector and the career progression is quite slow which could be frustrating.

I lived with three other summer placement students who were also working at DSTL. We often went out after work and ate lunch together. There were not many activities organized by DSTL; there were a couple evenings organized by the grad group. It was a little difficult as not everyone lived in the same area and some summer students were able to commute from home.

The accommodation I stayed in was university halls which were quite expensive and not very well equipped. Travel also was a little expensive as the free bus route did not extend all the way into Portsmouth. Socializing was reasonably priced although it depended where one went as some bars were quite expensive.

I stayed in Portsmouth where there is quite a lot of nightlife with lots of pubs bars and clubs. However they were generally quite quiet as there were not very many students around. Friday night was the only night when it would make sense to out and there were quite a few places to go.

There were plenty of activities that one can get involved in, in the local areas such as Portsmouth and Southampton. I would not recommend living in Portchester as although it is closer to work there is very little to do. I personally joined a local cricket club which gave me something to do on the weekends.