IT Planning Review

I enjoyed being part of a motor vehicle company given real responsibilities. The work was varied but I very much enjoyed the whole experience. The main thing I will take away is the huge amount of business awareness that I have developed through Vauxhall. I feel that the whole work placement will benefit me greatly when it comes to getting a job.

I felt valued by my colleagues, if you did a good job you would know about it and colleagues would be grateful. I felt valued by my manager and the opportunity of having mid year assessments also allows you to have informal chats about how well you are doing with your job role.

I very much appreciated the amount of help and effort that was given from my line manager. I suppose this could completely depend on the role you are applying for, but in my case I felt I was eased into the job with a lot of support. I had never hesitated to ask my supervisor for help if I felt it was needed. I feel my manager pushed me to reach my full potential within the role through delegating real responsibility tasks.

This varied, some days I was quite steady with regards to work (but always had bits to do), then some days would be a lot more hectic. I suppose this will be the case with most roles but I always had something I could be getting on with.

Some of the tasks I was involved in doing would affect certain processes in IT and would also be systems that many different IT employees would be using. I feel that this amount of responsibility was great for my placement as it gave me the chance to show I could create a user friendly systems and sites.

My role wasn't as technical as my University course but that is simply down to the course you take and role you applied for. Therefore with regards to technical skills I did not gain a lot of skills. With regards to interpersonal skills I feel I have learnt a lot such as communicating, presenting, interpersonal skills, these have all increased significantly. Also combined with a huge amount of business awareness I have gained, I believe this placement will assist me beyond my degree when it comes to getting a job making me more employable.

The atmosphere could be quiet at times which was quite nice, but sometimes a little too quiet. It needed a bit of a team atmosphere boost in the office I feel. However, everyone was nice and approachable.

I feel that HR do a great job in setting up the overall work placement. The 2 week handover gives you a chance to sit down with the previous undergraduate and go through the role step by step. I also received a large amount of documentation which helped within my role and the social aspect of setting in and making friends with new undergraduates was put together very well.

There was excel training and presentation training. Both which were beneficial but I feel the company could invest in the undergraduates a bit more in terms of development.

Although the undergraduate placement is put together very well there is no actual graduate scheme. I feel that that there could have been a lot of undergraduates with potential who have been lost over the years. It's not very clear if anything will happen after your placement year.

With around 100 undergraduates the social aspect of the placement was very enjoyable. I made lots of friends who I hope to stay in touch with. We were settled into the placement with a 2 week handover schedule which gave us all the chance to socialize and make groups of friends. Throughout the year we have aimed to make the most and been travelling a lot at the weekends and organizing a lot of social events.

Even though Luton isn't too far from London I was shocked at how cheap it was to live here. I paid £62.50 rent a week which is extremely cheap - although the house isn't amazing. Cost of general living and nights out were also cheap, although don't expect anything from Luton nightlife.

Luton isn't brilliant but can still have a laugh with a good group. Not far away is Harpenden, St Albans, Watford and even 30mins on a train you can get to London so there's places to go.

There has been the odd opportunities such as a CSR charity day, rounder's tournaments and quiz days - but not a lot. There doesn't happen to be any paid opportunities it will all be under the employees expense. Other examples have been climbing mountains in the lake district (IT), London to Brighton bike ride, and there's also weekly opportunities to play football, so there is bits to do.