When trying to decide what to do in the summer, I knew I wanted to secure an internship. I had spent the better course of the academic year, whenever I could, trying and failing to apply to several internship roles. As the year crawled to an end, I couldn’t help but be conscious of my lack of experience compared to people around me. It’s thanks to the LEAP programme that I was able to secure an internship and finally gain some confidence and experience that would carry me onto my adult working life.
Hannah and Kate were instrumental in helping me and a vast majority of the cohort navigate this environment. The other resources that LEAP provided, firstly with interview coaching sessions with Denise Taylorson, and additional help from Aryanisha Lawes allowed me the capacity to balance searching for an internship with the usual demands of my academic career. My thanks additionally for my LEAP mentor, Sophie Gadvhi, who taught me several valuable skills that allowed me to thrive in the workplace.
It’s with great gratitude that eventually, I managed to secure an internship within the cofinitive branch of Cambridge Management Consulting. This would turn out to be a very insightful, incredibly thought-provoking experience that I have nothing but positive things to say about.
My role here revolved around the 21toWatch programme, a programme that highlights and commemorates exactly the achievements of twenty-one people, innovations and small companies from a wide range of sectors: from the medicine and pharmaceutical industry, advancements in agricultural technology to industry-leaders in generative AI, all these things that I had not recognised entrepreneurs were constantly striving to improve. It was an honour to personally work with cofinitive and learn more about the leaders and people that form a segment of the backbone that sustains our world, and I was fortunate enough to be offered an eight-week internship over August and September.
I mostly worked from home, and made use of the generous flexibility that cofinitive offers. Here, I analysed and compiled research of over one thousand companies that had made up the 21toWatch masterlist, leading an analysis with a fellow LEAP peer, Ava, of the various ways in which the 21toWatch programme could learn from and innovate with other several business award programmes across the UK. This involved extensive research, maintenance and updating of cofinitive records. I found this a fascinating workstyle and an extensively interesting insight into corporate life. Utilising my own academic degree, although it being quite distanced from the corporate world, was quite rewarding.
Additionally, I identified several areas in which cofinitive could improve their data management of the 21toWatch entrants, and sought to make improvements in inputting potential entries: from designing macros, to standardizing entries, to creating a master list that would be useable for the foreseeable future, ensuring that I would be able to leave an impact on the company that would resonate past my own departure. Hopefully, for the next cohort of the 21toWatch programme, my efforts would bear fruit and ensure that the resulting process is more streamlined than it had ever been in the past.
At the end of the internship, I was able to present my analysis to several members of cofinitive along with Hannah and Kate from the LEAP programme. I feel that I’ve vastly improved my confidence and other skills: showcasing what we’ve done and answering questions from curious, dedicated parties, a cathartic end to around eight weeks of work. It was as though I had glimpsed into a world that I don’t think I would have ever experienced on my own, and I am grateful for all the help LEAP has given me to break out of my comfort zone.
Reflecting on my internship, I am unsure as to what my career path will follow me in ten-year’s time. Perhaps this corporate sector is where I will go, but I still have a lot more learning on my own to figure that out for myself. I understand this corporate sector more so than I did several months ago and will help shape the course of my professional career for the years to come.
To reiterate, the LEAP program was helpful for me, primarily in navigating the opportunities and discovering my own strengths that allowed me to thrive in a workplace environment. The LEAP internship grant, additionally, was paramount in helping me live in a quiet place in Cambridge and for purchasing business attire. And last but not least, I would like to thank Faye Holland, my supervisor for the duration for the internship, in thoughtfully guiding me and Ava through our work and providing us valuable feedback on our own skills. My experience of all in this internship was pleasant, and I have Faye to thank for everything that she’s offered me.
