Foundation Business Analyst Review

Work wise, the placement year was not relevant to my degree and the company did little to address this 'misplacement'. Socially however, the placement year offers great opportunities in networking with others and gaining crucial insight into a global company.

My team seldom made me think that I am a student. Overall a very professional atmosphere with real responsibilities from the beginning.

The support structure, in theory, is great. There is an entire department ('Foundation') dedicated to the personal development of placement and graduate students. Each student is also assigned a mentor and has many opportunities to shadow other employees to help broaden their knowledge across the business. However in practice, the Foundation team do very little to actually help the student. Upon asking for help the student may find him/herself spending an hour listening to the Foundation manager talking about his/her life and completely forgetting the purpose of the meeting. Throughout the year it became evident that the Foundation team are just ex-business managers who find it a struggle to have let go of their previous positions of responsibility and clout. The task manager (on the job manager) was a far better source for help and guidance and was actually involved in the day to day business of the student (unlike the Foundation team - who at all times insist on keeping a building's length away).

The workload was very dependent on the individual's desire to achieve.

I made it clear from the onset that I wanted to go beyond the average student role and my manager happily rewarded me with extra responsibility as soon as I proved my worth.

My job role was completely unrelated to my degree and the (unhelpful) Foundation team did little to address this (although they do praise themselves in being able to find alternative roles for unhappy students). However the soft skills that are tested within any job are relevant to all disciplines.

Extremely depressed would be the best way to sum this up. My department (along with the entire Finance building it seems) faced the threat of redundancy throughout the year (it was purported that the department would no longer exist in 5 years) and so I worked amongst people with very little job security. Job security of course is a key factor in job satisfaction so one can easily imagine the atmosphere in my department.

I feel that the entire placement would have improved if Foundation did not exist. Foundation was often a cause for distress amongst students especially regarding their final year rating. Many, including myself, complained about the fact that the success of the placement students was decided by Foundation, which during the year had very little exposure to the students' working environment. Many business managers disagreed with the existence of Foundation and the amount of influence they held over placement students. In a world trying to tackle excess bureaucracy, Foundation seems very outdated, and perhaps more importantly, unnecessary.

This is the area I rate IBM the highest. I felt valued throughout my time by my team manager and colleagues. I was encouraged to take on extra courses and responsibilities to improve key skills which I felt needed improving. My task manager was perhaps the most helpful individual I came across during my placement.

We were told explicitly by a Finance Director at IBM 'to avoid Finance if we want job security'. With messages like that it is no wonder why employee morale is so low.

The best part of the placement year by far! The social feeling was akin to university life and I met some terrific people throughout the placement.

For such a small city, Portsmouth is actually quite expensive - compared to Manchester anyway.

Nothing great (again I am comparing to Manchester!) but not too bad either. There is Albert Road offering many diverse pubs and bars and Gunwharf boasting all but two night clubs (you will get bored very quickly with the limited offering here!)