RDD Intern Review

Very much!

I did feel valued, especially considering my lack of previous experience in the field. People took genuine interest in my work and in finding areas I may be of use in, and on a few occasions I was asked to help out on something that somebody thought I could be of use to. Nobody ever seemed to respect my opinion or work any less for me being an intern, and I was never given any menial tasks to do either. I pretty much felt like a full employee.

I had weekly meetings with my supervisor, and regular meetings with more senior members of staff to review and guide the direction of my work, They always took me seriously and expected consistent progress and development. The worst thing I can say is that there was a slight lack of long term planning for the project, but this was mainly to do with the open-ended scope of the project and my manager helped to come up with a solution to this when I raised it.

Varied from week to week, sometimes it felt like I had too many tasks and occasionally I ran out of things to do, mainly due to having to wait for lab time or equipment. There were always side tasks and projects I could keep busy with though, and my manager would give me suggestions with other things to try if I needed.

I was given total responsibility for the project I was working on, as well as in managing my own time, writing reports and scheduling meetings and reviews. There were always people to ask for help though and I never felt overwhelmed.

I feel like I developed invaluable skills in work ethic and gained a lot of knowledge over the three months. Since I am studying maths, not engineering, it was always going to be a learning experience and I think the experience will be very useful when deciding on a career a few years down the line.

Quite laid back for an office environment, which was helped by the casual dress code and the open plan office building. Most people were very enthusiastic and motivated about what they were working on, which meant a very good working culture. I enyoyed coming to work, and everyone was friendly and approachable, although people were usually quite busy! The facilities were also not particularly impressive or well organised, but this should be fixed by the finishing of the new building next year.

In general very well, although there was occasionally a slight lack of communication or events organised at short notice. If you needed anything clarifying though, it was always easy to find out from HR or from a manager.

Again, not being an engineer, the company took a reasonably large risk in employing me for three months, and gave me plenty of opportunities to make sure I could fit in well.

They made it clear from the start that good work would be rewarded with a job offer; I haven't formally been offered a job but I understand that this will be decided right at the end of the placement. There appears to be a good (although slightly chaotic) prospect of career progression within the company, and it would be a very good place to work.

The location of the office meant people were spread out between Bristol, Bath, Chippenham and Malmesbury and so trying to organise regular socials was quite difficult. However this meant that they were very good when they did happen and people would always be up for going to the pub if they were local.

I lived in Bristol, which was quite expensive but had the most to do.

Very good! Bristol is an excellent student city with loads of clubs and bars, and in the summer there are plenty of street festivals. I didn't choose to go out too late too much but the option was always there, and there are cheap student nights on during term time.

There is an organisation within the company dedicated to out-of-work activites, and so there are plenty. There are lots of sports clubs either in the company or which advertise to employees, evening talks every week, staff engineering competitions, language lunches and socials, and plenty more.