IT Consultant Review

I really enjoyed my placement at CGI, the work was really interesting, the people were lovely and the whole company culture was very welcoming and focused on helping you become better everyday in your job and your profession.

I felt very valued and that my opinion counted for the majority of the decisions that were made in my team/project. Working in an agile environment, meant that I had as much say about work in the team than anyone did and if my ideas were suitable and the whole team agreed on the idea, they were implemented.

Throughout my whole experience I was given lots of support, when needed, by all my colleagues. From the first day I joined I was enrolled into a buddy system, where I had a person in my project who I could go to for help, guidance, development help, anything really. Not only did I have a buddy, but my line managers were excellent with helping me with any problems that I had and there was always someone in the office who would know how to help you or knew someone that could help you.

In the beginning of my placement, I wasn't as busy as I would've liked to have been. There were a lot of training courses and induction activities for a couple of weeks. However, going from university, where you are always busy, to a placement where you are sometimes busy, was quite a big change and I learnt very quickly that in an agile environment to become a successful developer, you should try to find your own work when you are not busy, work that will aid the project, or improve processes etc. Once I had learnt to do this over the next few months, I had a great balance of work being dealt to me and then if I was overloaded I could re-distribute that work, so that I had less stress.

During my placement, I had quite a lot of responsibility, a main responsibility included completing BAU (business as usual) work that my project was contractually obliged to follow out before a deadline, otherwise penalties would occur. However, there was a LIVE system that I wasn't given access to in my project, which did make me feel quite alienated from those who did have access. Not having this access also restricted me from completing around 30-40% of other work due to needing LIVE access. This however, was specifically for me in my project, other placement students that were in other projects didn't have this issue.

This placement has been exactly what I wanted it to be. I learnt how to conduct myself properly in a professional environment, how to actually communicate in a team and the importance of this, especially in software development. My development skills have also improved, allowing me to apply what I had learnt at university into a professional environment and really help solidify computer science theories. Even for someone who has developed for a long time, you don't truly know how to develop until you put your skills to the test in a complex system. I had lots of training and could do any course that would aid me in my job. I had access to Pluralsight, which is an website that offers 1000's of courses. Moreover, having people around me who had 20+ years experience really helped me improve my development skills. I think this will all help me at university, allowing me to understand all computer science topics better and overall become a better developer.

In general the atmosphere was quite relaxed and everyone was friendly and approachable. I felt like I could ask anyone for help or questions. We also had a club called the SSC (Sports and Socials Club) which was really good and meant that we could socialise with people all over the company and not just those in our projects.

The placement was organised very well. For the first two weeks, we were given training course so that we could understand the company and its culture. However, your projects organisation depended on what project you were in. My project had very good organisation, where I was on a different role every 3 months, to get the bigger picture about the project and would also have meetings to go over how I felt the placement was going.

There was some investment into me, such as paying for course in interviewing skills to teach me how to interview someone and also giving me a subscription to Pluralsight, that allowed me to take course online in almost any skill. However, there were a few paid courses that I wanted to take, such as safe agile training and C# development training, which I wasn't able to go to. I think however, if I was a graduate, I would've been given access to that kind of training.

Very appealing, there are 100's of opportunities and each project within the organisation is likes it's own company, with its own varying culture and ways of doing things. I think if I stayed on at this company, I would be able to progress well in my field and gain lots of useful experience.

The social scene was really good. On the first day you get to meet all your fellow placement students, working across the UK. This means you can put names to faces and when calling up or speaking to a fellow placement student, you feel comfortable and good knowing there is someone else in your position. The SSC (Sports and Social Club) also really helped me fit in and get to know all the placement students and even make life long friends.

I lived in Guildford and worked in Leatherhead. The commute was fairly cheap, with driving to work costing around £20 in petrol a week and taking the train roughly £40. Guildford is reasonably expensive with prices near to London prices and Leatherhead is a bit more pricey. However, nightlife in Guildford is great and cheap due to having a massive student population from Surrey university, where as Leatherhead had no nightlife. If you work in Leatherhead I would suggest either living in Epsom or Guildford.

There is terrible nightlife where I work, next to no clubs or pubs apart from one weather spoons. There are nice places to eat but they are quite expensive. I think working in the Reading office would've offered a lot more nightlife and places to go, for a lot cheaper than Guildford. Not to mention that Reading also has a large student population and many events.

There were quite a few opportunities. Mainly the SSC (Sports and Social Club) provided lots of outside of work activities such as, movie and game nights, a Fifa tournament, Monday night 6-aside indoor football and Friday outside 7-aside football. There was also, running and walking clubs, charity events happening all the time. There were a lot of opportunities, however they didn't all appeal to younger people.