3/5
Really enjoyed all the new skills I learned but struggled with being one of the only interns at the site, especially living alone, away from my friends and family.
I feel like my role and the job I did was essential but I wasn’t validated by managers very often, I had to seek that out deliberately. However, on a social level, everyone was always very kind and supportive.
My direct line manager didn’t provide much support and organised talks with the intern manager felt quite unpersonalised. However, I found amazing support through some other colleagues and especially HR.
Initially, my work was extremely sparse but quite difficult, so I was bored quite a lot with some very stressful periods. As I gained more responsibilities I was busy every day.
I was very quickly entrusted with a very high level of responsibility. Within a few weeks I had almost full responsibility of each of the tasks that I did, all with great importance to the department.
I learned fantastic skills for my future career and really valued the extra training sessions. Other than soft skills such as time management, I have very little useful skills for my degree as my job wasn’t related to my studies.
Specifically in my department, it was a very quiet atmosphere on a usual day. Some days, for example around Christmas, were more fun, yet in general it was quite dull unless I moved around the factory and talked to other colleagues.
The internship programme was great and it was the organised training days, assessment centres and career fairs that I enjoyed the most whilst doing my placement.
The personal training I received, I actually value more than the skills I leaned on the job. There could have been even more of these throughout the year!
It was very difficult to secure any kind of graduate role within the company. I will have to apply like anyone else, although I would have an advantage over someone who didn’t do a internship with the company.
I had almost no socialisation with the other placement students at my site, but when I got to meet up with interns from other UK sites, it was great.
Cheaper than when living at university but still quite a high price compared to other areas of the country.
I almost never went out, so I can’t say much about this one.
There were some opportunities but more geared to pearls the older demographic that most of my colleagues fit into.