University Website Programme Intern Review

I really enjoyed the internship. It went beyond my expectations in terms of that I expected the work to be not only technical but editorial as well (writing articles, editting them) but my Line Manager considered the fact that I am studying Computer Science ans gave me a project that mainly involves technical work in terms of software development. It was a 8-week project. In the mean time I was also given smaller daily tasks that were not connected with my project but were bringing diversity into my workflow. Overall I am more than satisfied by the internship.

Even though I was in the Website Programme department for only 8 weeks everybody welcomed me warmly and made me feel part of the team right from the 1st day. I was attending every weekly meeting, being aware of what is happening in the team, who works on what.

As I already mentioned, my Line Manager was supporting me all the time, adjusting my duties according to what I wanted to take out of the internship. Initially i was thinkung about not doing user testing, partially because I had never done it before, but he explained to me why should I do it. After his guidance I red a book in the office about user testing, became aware of all the pluses and eventually did it. This is probably one of the most useful things I would take away from my internship.

Depending in which phase of my project I was, my daily activities were varying. Initially for example I was spending most of my days developing the software and planning while at the end there was less developing and more interaction with users for user testing and fellow developers for handing over the project in future. As I mentioned earlier my manager was giving me daily small tasks frim time to time, making sure I don't write code all day long.

Initially I inherited some code and partially developed project. It was up to me to finish it and improve it. My first try was not exactly what my manager expected so he gave me the freedom (and responsibility) to try to come up with a more useful and better way if visualizing the information I had to visualize. I realised that he trusts me, so in order not to let him down I spent a lot of time investigating similar projects, trying to take the best out of all. Eventually he liked the the final result. I was also given the responsibility to perform the user testing on my own, which was an umportant part of the project as a whole.

From a technical pint of view I expanded my Python knowledge and got to write a multi-threaded program, which is something quite hard but at the same time something I always wanted to do. From a non-technical point of view I got to see what is it like to work in an office environment, to communicate in a professional manner and work as pard of a team. Moreover in the final few weeks I learned how to present my work in front of both familiar and unfamiliar audience. Overall my presentational skills were greatly enhanced.

Quite warm and friendly. When asking for help there was always someone willing to help me. My workstation was in the room of the editors which for me as a developer was quite a new thing. Sometimes the chats and the conversations around me were coming as too much but on the flip side there was always someone willing to chat for a bit - perfect chance for me to lift my eyes from the screen with source code.

Very good - apart from the good management within the department the Careers Services at the University of Edinburgh were coordinating all summer interns. There were series of event and a whole program around how we improve ourselves while doing the internship and what would we take from it eventually.

The first week in the department was purely for training. The people there invested from their own time and efforts to show me around all the activities I might be involved with (including necessary technical knowledge in terms of using a particular piece of software)

I dare to say yes - throughout the internship I managed to make a lot of contacts not only at my workplace with my colleagues but with other fellow interns from across the University. A great help for this were the couple of events organised by the careers service, whose pure aim was exactly this - helping us networking and making new contacts. Even after the end of my internship I am still in touch with some of the people.

Roughly 5 pounds per day for lunch and coffee,