Summer Intern Review

My role involved automating existing tasks to reduce my team's weekly workload, as well as being the project owner for the Kanban boards employed for the management, organisation, and progress tracking for the team. I also developed system architecture diagrams from mock-ups that were given to me, and met consistently with people in various other roles and departments throughout the company to give me direct exposure to numerous potential career avenues. We were also expected to attend and complete numerous training sessions and courses as part of the intern cohort.

I have learn how to use particular software such as Confluence and JIRA, as well as how to present to management. I had my first exposure to architecture diagrams and how a process is understood at its highest level before being passed down to teams, and I have also developed the skill of considering automation opportunities to reduce future workload. During these tasks, I also helped another team member, developing my communication skills, and improved my leadership skills in numerous exercises with other interns.

I was given a considerable amount of responsibility and was given administrative access to management and organisational software on several occasions. My team relied on me to effectively construct a system to organise their tasks and produce reliable metrics for reporting purposes, all of which could not fail or other employees would certainly have been impacted. Overall, I would say that I was given the responsibility as well as the independence that would be expected of a full-time employee.

There was always someone to ask for help if I needed it. In particular, there was a buddy scheme where we were paired with someone on the graduate scheme. In my case, my buddy helped me make numerous new connections, improved my CV, and gave me fantastic general advice and support throughout the duration of my time at the company. My team members were also always willing to provide suggestions for solutions to problems and my line manager was usually available to provide further insight where required.

I can't fault the culture and atmosphere. I reached out to numerous people throughout the course of the internship so that I may question them on their roles and departments, and everyone was incredibly open and willing to talk to me. My team made me feel included from the very beginning, despite being by far the youngest one there, and I never felt alienated or undervalued. I plan on keeping in contact with some of those that I met on the internship regardless of where my career takes me as I value the relationships that the company's culture provided me.

I thoroughly enjoyed my placement and believe that I developed many useful skills and got out of it exactly what I would have hoped. I had a fantastic time, expanded my network, and would be very happy to work there in a full-time career. The work was the right balance of challenging and attainable, and the internship team made the effort to plan several team building events with the other interns to make the whole process as enjoyable as possible.

Yes

I would suggest trying to take a step back and approach interview questions and challenges that you might face with a broader perspective than you might normally consider. Don't just focus on technical details, but also pay attention to how things may impact the company or customers, try and have some awareness of the business and what value you and your work is adding to the business instead of simply expecting to be given a problem which should be solved.