Consultant Review

The work itself was reasonably interesting, and the people were great. A slight lack of organisation occasionally let the company down, but in general I was very happy.

The people were all very friendly and I got on well with everyone. Although I wasn't working on a 'critical' project I felt my contributions were appreciated.

I received sufficient guidance overall (and my manager was enthusiastic and very helpful), but there were some occasions when I had less to do that I would have liked, or the people who I needed for support were unavailable - not unlike a real job, I suppose!

Often I had plenty of interesting work I could get my teeth into, but on occasion I was left twiddling my thumbs a little, and some of the time I had slightly too much on my plate. Actually, I think the variety was good (it makes you appreciate both the up-time and the down-time more!)

The project I was working on, whilst not for an external client, was important internally, and I was very much able to make it my own.

It's rather hard to evaluate how learning specific programming languages or specific processes will help throughout the rest of my life, but Detica also invests a good amount of time in 'soft skills' such as presentation giving, which I certainly feel will help in the future.

Everybody in the office was extremely easy to get on with, and if we went for drinks after work they were great fun. However, everyone is fairly busy, and during the day people tend to knuckle down and get on with their work - that's not to say they completely ignored you, but the focus was on work rather than fun (as you'd expect, really). The other interns were a partial exception to this, and I had a really good time with them.

This is one area Detica falls down on. Until about 2 weeks before the start of my internship, I didn't know whether I'd be based in Guildford or London (despite my badgering, and explaining I needed to find a place to live), and the advice I received was to 'try and find accommodation where you can get to both' - hardly helpful. There were a few similar things throughout, with people not having access to the hardware they needed for the first week or two and so on. This may be caused by Detica only just having moved to a SEMTA internship scheme, and it's certainly no one person's failing (the problems come from various areas within the business), but certainly could be improved. Once I was settled, I had very few problems with organisation - it's just pre-start and the first week or two that have some niggles.

As mentioned in a previous answer, Detica invests a good amount of time in training, both in soft- and business-specific skills. The first week was entirely training to get up to speed in the relevant software, and throughout the internship there were training opportunities such as sessions designed to build presentation skills, introductions to various consultancy tools and so on.

I'm optimistic that Detica will choose to offer me a job upon completion, but who knows!

The other interns were great - there's not much else to say! One of the best aspects of the internship.

Central London is never going to be cheap, but I found a place to rent that was much less than I was expecting (just a 20 minute walk from work, too - saving the tub fare!), and going out for dinner or drinks is affordable once or twice a week.

I went home or visited friends most weekends, so can't comment strongly - I can't imagine London is all that bad, though (if a little expensive)!

There are sports and social clubs within Detica, but not on the same level as University (unsurprisingly). As mentioned before, everyone is really friendly, so if you wanted to get a group of people together to do something I'm sure you wouldn't struggle.