Summer scheme student- building surveying Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Savills during the Summer Scheme, the work that I was given to do was quite varied, which helped to give me exposure to the many different areas of the business as well as providing many learning opportunities. There were many useful talks set up for us during our month at Savills which helped to give us an insight into the many different areas within the company.

I felt somewhat valued by my colleagues, more so the younger graduates than others as I was given 90% of my work by graduates. I felt as though some of my other colleagues were a bit too busy or uninterested in the work I was doing or helping me out.

My mentor was helpful in giving me support and guidance and assured me that I could ask for help at any point if I didn't understand something. Everyone that I worked closely with always asked if I had any questions and tried to answer them to the best of their ability.

Unfortunately I wasn't very busy on a daily basis due to a lack of day to day work in the team that I was working in. Also the fact that I did the scheme in the middle of the summer meant that quite a few people were away on holiday, so there probably wasn't as much for me to do as there would've been towards the start of the summer. HR do encourage you to tell them if you aren't getting enough work but I felt like this would make it awkward with my team so I decided not to.

I was given a fair amount of responsibility during my placement although everything was double checked by my mentor before it was saved in the job file which, I actually preferred because I was not very confident in the work that I was carrying out as my degree is not related to the sector.

The skills that I have developed during my placement won't necessarily help assist me in my degree studies as it is completely unrelated to my degree. However, the placement gave me an insight into building surveying and helped developed the skills needed to be a building surveyor and has definitely increased my confidence in the work place.

Personally, I was quite surprised by the general atmosphere in the office as it was very quiet and everyone seemed to keep talking to a minimum or just talked very quietly. However, towards the end of my placement as more people came back from holiday the office did get a bit louder but not massively. I also felt like the atmosphere in the office was quite serious and people weren't overly friendly towards me apart from the few that I worked closely with.

Overall, the whole summer scheme was organised very well with lots of different talks about the different areas in the sector, graduate opportunities, the APC along with many networking opportunities with fee earners and other interns and graduates. However, I would say that it wasn't good in terms of organising the amount of work for me to do, it seemed like nothing had been prepared for my arrival and I was just being given any work they could find at the last minute especially during the first week of the placement.

I wouldn't say the company really invested in me as an intern, there were no training or development days, but perhaps this is because it was quite a short placement of only a month so it may have just been a bit of waste of time when you're trying to get an insight into the industry and the roles within it in such a short space of time.

There are many future opportunities for graduates within the organisation, with their intake of people growing each year. However, people that have completed the summer scheme still have to apply to the same graduate scheme as everyone else and do not get fast tracked at all, they still have to go through the assessment centre and interviews.

All of the other interns were friendly and sociable and we met up for drinks a couple of times after work.

London is known to be an expensive area so it was quite expensive to socialise.

There were lots pf good pubs and bars around the Margaret st office to go to after work

Apart from drinks with interns not really but I feel like we weren't here long enough to really get involved in activities outside of work.