Administrative Officer Review

My placement was really good and it was organized exceptionally well by my manager and team. They were also flexible in my starting date due to commitment to exams/dissertation as it usually starts early/mid June. The work was pretty much Economics related and there were lots of opportunities to get involved in different events, presentations of new stats and debates on GDP forecasting/exchange rates and new data. As it is civil service the environment is slow which means sometimes there is not much work at student level.

My colleagues and department were like my small family. We used to have laughs and jokes together and we knew each other inside out. They were really helpful in first settling me in the department and then helping me when I used to have any doubts or queries. They used to give me relevant work to support my development and helped me all the way through my placement. Still some of the colleagues are in touch with me and I share what is going on in my life.

My manager was pretty young and he was involved with me helping me out in my stuff and taking care of my development and objectives for the internship. I always used to discuss any problems or issues I had and he was always very open and friendly.

As it is civil service, work is really slow paced and I was not really busy regularly as the environment is relaxed and people just do it on their own pace. There is not much pressure to be honest. Some of the days I just used to go to other internship students and we used to just sit around and discuss/chat. We also had a costa café where we can just chill and watch news as there was always bbc news going on. There was much time on hands when I used to do nothing and just read news. Good for me though, enjoyed it!

I was handed a massive Mergers and Acquisitions project at the start of the placement and my department told me to finish it off before I leave. The project was interesting as there were different types of analysis and I had to create reports. It was basically comparing the results before and after economic downturn and then writing short stories on them. Furthermore, I was also involved in weekly economic discussion and I had contributed 'one' weekly commentary on the latest economics news/affairs (not politics)

There are quite a few opportunities to develop some different skills. One of the major ones was SAS. It is a statistical software which is used to calculate huge database and it is very good if someone knows the programming language of it. Makes life a lot easier if you know how to handle. I also got involved in keeping up to date with latest news and as we had presentations after important stats release I used to join them and they were very informative and knowledgeable. This has also made my habit of keeping upto date with information from reliable sources such as ft/economist

The atmosphere was pretty relaxing and chilled out as people used to work at their own pace. Colleagues used to go for smoke breaks and tea breaks and lunch breaks and it used to eat up lots of time. We also had biscuits/candies/chocolates/cakes in our department and I had gained some weight as well. But yes it is very friendly and family type where each other knows pretty well. People were not crazy busy in their work and always helped me out.

The internship was organized well and I had work to do but sometimes I used to have no work and just sit and read news/boring time. It is sometimes like this when there is less work to get involved and especially at this junior level, there is not much work for us.

Not much but they give you some resources and training opportunities to get involved and there is not much pressure of work. They always tell you that its my call whether in what work I want to get involved in.

The work experience is useful and this experience has helped me develop professional personality which will be useful in future applications.

Yes we were about 20-25 placement/internship students. Interns were around 12 and the rest were placement students who were about to finish. There was always something going on and as many of us were living in Cardiff the life was good. We used to go out for bowling/cinemas/dinner and meet at others place for board games and stuff. Students were actively involved in different stuff and I really enjoyed the time with them.

As my office was based in Newport, cost of living was cheap although I used to live in Cardiff. Cardiff is a lively area and a good/cheap place to live whereas Newport is dull. Also it doesn't takes long to travel from Cardiff to Newport

Cardiff nightlife is good and there were many clubs to go to and especially in summer people were actively participating in events and parties.

Yes we used to have training opportunities in different office and different departments of GES (government economic scheme) and travel is fully paid for those as this money comes from department's budget. Also, you get to learn of other GES departments and as well as what are the stages + hints and tips for the graduate application process.