Project management intern Review

Certain aspects of the internship I enjoyed more than others. There were some tasks that I got really engaged with and found very interesting whereas others I found quite dull just due to my personal interests. I really enjoyed networking with people in my office and across the business. I learnt a lot from my time there and overall it was a really beneficial experience.

All of my team members were very welcoming and more than happy to help. I was given important work that needed to be done, not just tasks to keep me busy. My input in meetings was encouraged and respected. I was involved in team activities from the start and felt like a real member of the team.

There were weekly catch-ups scheduled with my manager in which we went through the work that I had done that week and discussed what I had enjoyed and what went well. Based on this feedback I would be recommended online training modules, articles or given contacts related to what I had enjoyed/areas I needed to work on to encourage my personal development.

For the first month or so I was not particularly busy, this was partly because it was holiday season and partly due to miscommunication before I arrived. Towards the end this improved as I became more confident in my ability and asked for work or offered to do tasks for other people. My schedule varied every week and some weeks were much busier than others.

Towards the end I became more trusted and the tasks that I were given became more challenging and of increasing importance, therefore my level of responsibility increased over the course of the internship. I was given the opportunity to engage with several senior leaders in the company. I felt like I had an important role.

I developed a wide range of skills that I believe will be valuable in the rest of my degree and beyond. The most notable skills I have developed are around communication and conduct in a business environment as this is something I think you can only really pick up when in a business environment through engaging with people.

The office was generally quite quiet. The office is large and very open plan but there was not enough people to fill it, add to this holidays, people travelling for work and people working from home and there were some days when there was no one around at all. This meant I could focus and get work done but could often mean the days went very slowly.

I received a very rapid offer following my internship and lots of communication regarding the security clearance process. However, after this I didn't receive much information at all. I was given a buddy who I had a call with but they were provided with very little information about me or my internship and therefore were not able to answer many questions. In the end I had to contact HR the week before I started to request information about my induction as I had not heard anything.

There was an online library of training programmes that we had access to. I completed many of the free ones but we were not put forward for any of those that had a cost. Our travel to several sites around the country was paid for to allow us to see different aspects of the business, this helped inform my decisions about the future.

Off the back of the internship there is the opportunity to be fast tracked through the online assessment to the assessment centre for the grad scheme. Finding contacts in the company through the internship will be valuable on the grad scheme as you have to organise your own placements. I had the opportunity to speak to lots of graduates and heard nothing but good things about the scheme.

I worked closely with several other interns and we went for lunch together on a daily basis but as we were all living at home/with family and there were not many social activities near by there was not much of a social scene outside of work.

It is in a reasonably expensive are to live but there is a free shuttle bus from the station to the office which makes travel considerably cheaper and food on site was subsidised.

Due to the location of the office most people drove into work and therefore socialising after work was rare. Most interns lived at home/with family and therefore had little drive to socialise.

There were a few lunchtime/after work activities available (quiz, sports teams) but these were not well advertised.