Applications Engineering Intern Review

The internship was very enjoyable - my project was interesting and helped me to develop a wide range of both hardware and software skills.

My colleagues were friendly towards me, and as a result, it was very easy to settle into the company.

My manager always answered any questions that I had, and often to came to my desk to help me out. Sometimes it took a little while before he was available to do this though, as he was often very busy. When he did have the time to help me, his assistance was outstanding - he was able to explain things very well, and was always able to help me through any problems which I had encountered. When not available to help me in person, he would always quickly get back to me with any simple questions I asked over Skype.

I always had plenty of things to do, but there was a lot of flexibility with how I completed my work, so long as I met any project deadlines. As a result, it was quite easy to takes breaks or go for lunch without worrying about taking too much time away from my work.

I was given sufficient responsibiility to undertake my project without major hinderance. As an intern I was not given an excess of responsilbility though - I was mainly just responsible for my own project. I also had the responsibility of representing the company in fairly public environments on a couple of occasions.

I developed quite a broad range of skills which will be relevant to future work on both hardware and software for the remainder of my degree and also beyond. Some of the training I received was quite specific to the company's products, but I will still be able to adapt this to other situations in the future.

The atmosphere in my office was very relaxed, but without going overboard. In general, things were quiet in order to provide a good working environment, but people were also not afraid to speak up or chat with everyone if it were appropriate. We had a table where people left any food or drink to share - as people in my office travelled around the world on business quite a lot, this often resulted in quite interesting foods to sample! Every Friday, most people in the office would go for lunch at the local pub. This was a good way of getting to know my coworkers in a more social environment.

Things were pretty well organised in the sense that I had no major issues. The company was fairly communicative with me in advance of starting the internship, and on my first day a fairly large group of interns were gathered together for an induction session. I just wish I had been given a more detailed outline of the work that I was going to be doing before starting at the company. I was assigned a 'buddy' who I could contact if I had any issues during my time at the company, but unfortunately this person did not make themselves known to me, and I instead had to find out myself who it was supposed to be.

I feel that the company has invested a lot in me in terms of personal training and development - they offered internal training sessions which were relevant to my project, and also paid for me to attend the external UK Electronic Skills Foundation Summer Workshop which helped me develop my professional skills. In addition to these formal training sessions, the informal one-to-one time spent with my manager was also of great benefit to my personal training and development.

The company appears to be fairly interested in keeping engaged with me in the future. In terms of how appealing future employment prospects are, I would love to work at the company, but unfortunately Cambridge where the company is based is not the most exciting place to live.

Yes, a variety of intern events organised by the company allowed us to get to know one another quite well. This allowed us to arrange quite a few social events external to the company. My colleagues were also quite socially inclusive of me, despite being a few years younger than them, and only working at the company for a short period of time.

I found Cambridge to be just the same as, if not even more expensive than London in terms of living and social costs. Unfortunately Cambridge does not have the perks of London though, so the cost did seem to be unreasonably high.

The nightlife seemed to be very much oriented towards 'working-class' locals during the weekends, making it quite difficult to engage with other people. During term time, I imagine that the nightlife during the week would be very much oriented towards students. This did not preclude having an enjoyable time though - it just meant that that the opportunities for an enjoyable night were a little more limited.

Yes. There were not as many opportunities to take part in activities as are availble at university, but given the much lower number of people on site, this was not really a surprise. I feel that activities could be developed more by the company in the future though to provide a greater variety of things to get involved with and to get a wider proportion of the staff involved.