Intern/Trainee Review

Your role can be very varied - it depends on what team and what line of service you are in. Sometimes i had computer science related work - programming and testing, but a lot of the time it was just researching online, collating data, writing short pieces. You tend to do new things every day.

I learnt about the business world and relevant business skills, including business presentational skills. Also, I developed my networking skills, social skills, and teamwork skills. Technical skills not so much, as a lot of people here do not have a technical background thus do not assign you technical work to do,

I enjoy the university side of it a lot. The work placement is varied: I like the people at PwC they are very friendly, and when i get compsci work i enjoy it. However, I do find some of the work to be repetitive and boring, and PwC as a company is still stuck in old habits despite claiming to e open to new technology and new ways of working.

As it is the first year of this programme, in some aspects they are quite flexible and do not have a concrete plan. On the one hand, this can be good as it means you can sort of tailor your experience and they are open to suggestions. On the other hand, the lack of organisation is quite worrying and communication regarding placements can be very poor and last minute at times.

The employers support you well, you have multiple people assigned to you to help your career development, your business development and even a buddy. The leaders of the degree apprenticeship itself are very friendly and try their best to find answers to your questions, and set up regular meetings over your time at uni and during placement to check up on you

This varies depending on your personal tutor and you yourself. University assigns you a personal tutor for the school of computing who in first year meets with you weekly or fortnightly. They are willing to help and support you, mine was very supportive, however if you don't attend tutor meetings then of course you won't reap the benefits of the tutor system. The university itself claims to offer support in terms of counselling etc but this is very poor with a long waiting list, so support in that aspect is severly lacking.

The computer science degree helps to provide a concrete understanding of the foundations of computer science. Programming principles and database knowledge is useful in your placement, in addition to agile development principles, but also the degree helps to develop your problem solving and written communication skills which helps you perform better in your role.

Yes, there are a range of sports teams, musical groups, google+ groups, and similar interest/identity groups (eg gender, sexuality, sector, religion) that is there for you to partake in if you wish to. Many teams have socials, and promote external and internal network events but this varies from team to team.

Yes

The combination of a respected degree, no student debt and a salary, and secured work experience, is a very good opportunity and sets you up well for life.

You may hesitate to apply as the work placements are a big commitment, but in my opinion they are definitely worth sacrificing summer holidays/year abroads as the experience helps you to grow and saves the stress of applying to different internships every year. Research PwC and the work that they do to find out if it's for you.