We recently had Finlay and Kieran from Boroughmuir High School join us for a week-long work experience placement at our 2i Testing office in Edinburgh.
Finlay and Kieran’s experience at 2i
Walking in we were instantly greeted by a welcoming cosy office that had the feeling of a productive and supportive environment. Meeting some of the staff confirmed this as everyone greeted us with open arms and a friendly smile.
We enjoyed the space and feel of the office which supports a productive area for working and developing relationships with colleagues to work better as a team.
Starting off the week, we designed a skills matrix spreadsheet on Excel which helped us to develop a further understanding of the software itself and skills used within the business. Throughout the week we continued to fill in responses from staff.
We were also given the chance to create and develop our CV’s, where we were given tips on what makes a good CV to help us with our future job search.
As the week continued we were able to talk to different members of staff about features of the business such as a general overview or discussions about the business website.
We also developed an understanding of process mapping and worked on examples ourselves using draw.io software. This was useful in helping us to confidently construct our own after the task was complete.
Our ability within excel has been strengthened and we are now able to use the software with confidence and capability we did not have before. We have also developed our communication skills by talking to different members of staff about the business and other general tasks within the company.
Both of us came into this placement unsure of what we want to do after school, but after this placement, we have an understanding of this kind of environment and will be leaving with better knowing that we can then go on and use in the future.
If we had more time with the team at 2i, we would have liked the opportunity to meet with people from different sectors within the business to develop an understanding of different roles and skillset. We would also have liked if we had gained more responses for our skills matrix so that we could have completed more of it, however, we understand that not everyone is able to reply as quickly as we would have needed.
Nonetheless...
We loved the atmosphere of the office and all staff were very friendly and took time out of their day to speak to us and offer their help if required.
Furthermore, we were always kept busy and had something to do and enjoyed the tasks that we were asked to complete.
We really enjoyed constructing a skills matrix in our placement as it kept us busy and it felt like we were making a contribution to the business that might be completed and used in the future.
We also enjoyed doing the process mapping as we were able to experiment with it ourselves when carrying out our own process map which has introduced a skill we did not previously have before we came to the business on our placement.
We have enjoyed our experience of working within a proper office and both agree we feel we have been more productive within this environment and we will definitely miss it when we go back to our classrooms in school.
We will also miss the members of staff we have met on our experience, all have been very welcoming, and we felt very comfortable coming into this area for work.
Thank you,
Finlay and Kieran
From 2i
It was a pleasure having Finlay and Kieran at the office and hope both pupils thoroughly enjoyed their time with us.
Also, thanks to Boroughmuir High School, who can rightly feel proud of Finlay and Kieran as both were a credit to their school in the way they went about their tasks.
Everyone at 2i Testing would like to wish Finlay and Kieran all the very best for the future in whatever path they choose.
