We catch up with the 2020 Discover Digital Interns

13 August 20

As the fourth year of the Discover Digital Internship comes to a close, we speak with the interns to see how it went

The Discover Digital Summer Internship returns for its fourth year in 2020, with a strong pipeline of local digital talent. Since the programme started in 2017, there have been 46 interns that have participated and we are pleased that each year there have been students that are offered additional work, further education bursaries and full-time employment. Due to COVID19, there were a reduced number of places for 2020, but Digital Greenhouse was delighted to be working with six bright interns who are passionate about their digital career pathways.

After working with some of the Island’s leading companies for six-weeks, local students developed their skills and gained valuable knowledge about working in the digital sector. Presentation evening arrived came along with a full house to hear from the Digital Interns and their journey.

First up was Elliot who worked on Web Application Development and Security & Business Solutions with Resolution IT developing his knowledge about working with cloud technologies and deployment pipelines. Next up was Jenny, Laura and Seb who worked with First Central Insurance & Technology Group for their placement using coding to build a Focus Support Portal for internal use within First Central to make the Platform Support team workflow more fluid.

Hannah then shared her experience on her placements at JT and the Digital Greenhouse working on digital marketing projects, being heavily involved from planning comms journeys to the working on the final digital design. Efficiently building her people skills in meetings and a bustling office and creating digital content and writing articles with the team. Chloe was the final intern of the night to talk about her placement at EY, working on robot process automation. Explaining her journey through using RPA, UX design and tech audit, having already come to the internship with her knowledge of UX and then applying it to a real case study and learning the relationship and issues between UX designer and developer

Working in partnership with local businesses to provide young people with experience of our digital industries has had such a positive impact for those involved to date. This truly is a fantastic opportunity for students and graduates to experience cutting edge digital projects and showcases both employment opportunities and the high level of digitally innovative companies we have operating here in the Island.

Lucy Kirby - Director, Digital Greenhouse

This year's interns

Hannah Ogier

Placement company: JT and Digital Greenhouse

What have you been working on during your internship?

My Discover Digital Internship was split between JT telecoms in Jersey and The Digital Greenhouse. At JT I was working on updating the JT Careers website with new and more detailed content. This involved creating info graphics for their JT Talent schemes, designing icons for the website and deciding on the content and structure. I also produced detailed manager case studies through conducting interviews and these will also go up onto the website. I also worked on updating their apprenticeship recruitment day with new activities, challenges and questions. I managed and planned the filming and production of testimonial videos to go on the careers website.

In the second half of my internship I was at Digital greenhouse working within the team. Experiencing what it's like to work in an office, networking and participating in meetings was a great learning experience. My main role was to write articles and create infographics. I found my skill set on Adobe Illustrator was massively expanded through the help and advice of the rest of the team and I enjoyed learning how to use scheduling tools like Hootsuite and the website management content platform Umbraco. I also learnt how to write audience appropriate articles for the local paper and The Digital Greenhouse website. I picked up some great tips on how to write engaging content and how to structure an article.

Which skills have you developed during the placement?

I developed the skill of working collaboratively on projects to produce the best outcome. This involved listening closely to other peoples feedback and being adaptive. I have grown in confidence in zoom meeting calls, sharing my opinions and asking questions. I have also developed the skill of producing a design pitch or a video plan and then pitching it to a group of people. This involved working on my confidence and ability to explain my decisions with clarity. This internship also allowed me to build on my ability to work towards a deadline so that we had everything done by the time I finished the internship.

What would you say to students looking to take part in the internship?

This internship is a great way to introduce you to the digital marketing industry, network with people in the industry and try out a variety of skills from graphic design, website design, social media marketing and article writing. This internship has affirmed my decision to pursue a career in marketing and design and will be invaluable experience to talk about when I apply for a masters degree in Marketing in the coming year.

Sebastian Isakovic

Placement company: First Central Insurance & Technology Group

What have you been working on during your internship?

As a team, we have been creating a Focus Support Portal for internal use within First Central. As part of resolving incoming tickets (issues and data-change requests), the Platform Support team currently sends the ticket to the Data Fix team, who then must then make the changes manually. Our job is to create an Angular website which puts all of these in one easily accessible place, so that the platform support team can run these solutions themselves, without having to involve the often-busy Data Fix team. To achieve this, after a tool has been used, the site automatically updates the database.

Which skills have you developed during the placement?

At the start of the internship, I had very limited programming experience. I had done one or two python projects at university but never anything in depth. I have therefore had to learn quickly how to code in C# and in JavaScript. As part of this I have had to learn more about how the hardware of servers and databases work, in order to be able to code effectively and link up the features of the site correctly. As the least experienced of the three interns in the team, I have focused more on the Angular website side of things rather than the back-end code, leading me to refresh my knowledge of HTML and CSS as well.

What would you say to students looking to take part in the internship?

I would say that you should absolutely apply, even if you feel that you may not have too much experience. The best way to learn skills in computing and the wider digital world is to throw yourself into it. Before this, I had done a couple of YouTube tutorials on JavaScript, and had done some limited python at university, but it is only once you have been forced to come up with solutions to problems on the fly that you really start to learn what you are doing.

Chloe Brown

Placement company: Ernst & Young

What have you been working on during your internship?

2 weeks of RPA, 2 weeks of UX design and 2 weeks of tech audit

Which skills have you developed during the placement?

I have learned to apply my knowledge of UX to a real case study and the relationship and issues between what a UX designer wants and what the developer may want. I have developed my knowledge in robotics and in the world of calculating technological risk. I can now handle various tasks of different natures being given at the same time, and I have become more confident in speaking in group calls (spent all but 4 days working from home due to Covid-19, and the majority of the tech team is in Jersey).

What would you say to students looking to take part in the internship?

EY adapted their internship to suit my interest in UX so do not hesitate to let The Digital Greenhouse know what it is you are most interested in in the tech industry during your interview. Also, do it! Nothing to loose and you might find it is exactly what you want to pursue.

Elliot Bewey

Placement company: Resolution IT

What have you been working on during your internship?

I've worked with Web Application Development and Security & Business Solutions. I've used ASP .NET Core (MVC), Azure Cloud and modern technologies to develop, test, present and deploy solutions.

Which skills have you developed during the placement?

I've developed my communication skills, agile skills, and ability to work with cloud technologies and deployment pipelines. I've also learnt over the six weeks how to make my workflow more efficient, and do more with less time.

What would you say to students looking to take part in the internship?

If you're looking to develop your skills (both soft skills and technical skills that are immediately applicable to industry) then the Digital Greenhouses' Summer Digital Internship is an amazing opportunity to students, providing valuable work experience, and an opportunity to show how you developed through the placement and make connections with a presentation evening.

Discover Digital Digital Internship

Find out more and register your interest for the 2021 programme

Digital Pathways

Find out what Digital Pathway you want to take in your career

We catch up with the 2020 Discover Digital Interns

As the fourth year of the Discover Digital Internship comes to a close, we speak with the interns to see how it went

This year's interns

Hannah Ogier

Sebastian Isakovic

Chloe Brown

Elliot Bewey

Discover Digital Digital Internship

Digital Pathways

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