Life after Bachelors: Accenture & Deloitte
Read all about the experienes of Joep van der Weijden and Sanne Akkerman as they decided to start an internship at Accenture and Deloitte, directly after their Bachelors.
When finishing my Bachelor in June, and knowing I wanted to take a half your off to do something else, I started to look around for internships. An internship seemed like a logical way to gain some working experience and to find out what kind of master I wanted to do. This is how I ended up at Deloitte where I am currently doing an Internship for half a year. I chose to apply for an internship at consultancies due to my interest in them but mostly to get a better sense of what working as a consultant entails. Since I have been an active Lugus member and still visit Lugus from time to time, Gijs asked me write about my experience as a work student so far.
The first of September I started together with 300 other business analysts, interns and work students with the national introduction days where you get all your gadgets, meet the CEO, and are informed about the values and beliefs of Deloitte. You also get assigned a buddy who explains the systems you need to use and introduces you to everybody at the department. To prevent ambiguities from happening I would like to explain the difference between an intern and a work student. Besides the slight difference in salary, the main difference is that an intern devotes most of his/her time to writing a thesis during the internship and thus has less time for company related projects while a work student does not have to write a thesis and thus devotes all his/her time on company related projects.
I work as a work student at the department Oracle service line, which entails the implementation of Oracle software in various business processes to optimize information streams. However most of the projects I am working on have nothing to do with Oracle software and are more focused on Internet of things due to my manager who is leading the Innovation Management and Internet of Things (IoT) area. Since Internet of Things is a relatively new area these projects mostly are on a strategic level and include a lot of market analysis. Besides that, I also got the opportunity to go to clients for strategic workshops about IoT implementations. Just In 2 months’ time I have already been to three clients. So a lot is possible as long as you are willing to ask and indicate what you like to do and think is interesting.
Life as a work student does not only exist out of working, equally important are the networking possibilities.
Going to socials such as the FriMiBo or organized activities such as a bowling event or the annual skiing trip is important to broaden your network but it is also a great way to get to know your colleagues and ask them how they think about working at the company. This way you get a clearer and more honest impression of the company plus it’s a good excuse to have a few drinks with your colleagues at the expense of the company.
All in all I am very happy I chose to do an internship between my bachelor and master. I have been working for 2 months now at Deloitte and have already learned a lot about IoT and other innovations in the industrial market. I got to know many new people, all with a different background and a lot of them just finished university and started working. Their stories gave me a better sense of what working exactly entails, and more specific what working as a consultant entails. Now I can make a more informed decision whether I would like to work at a consultancy when finishing my master, which was the main reason I chose to do an internship at a consultancy. I hope I gave you a better sense of why I chose to do an internship.
Sanne Akkerman
Joep van der Weijden on Accenture
Having finished my bachelor and knowing that I want to do a master abroad, this summer I left Groningen for good. However, unlike most I did not start a master yet. I took the opportunity to take a year off and get some hands on experience in business. Right now I am doing an internship at Accenture for half a year and since I am still in contact with our chairman Gijs, he asked me to write about my experience so far.
Together with all the new hires, I started on the first of September with the ‘New Joiners Onboarding’, which are two days to get us up to speed with the companies’ core values and systems, receive your laptop, etc. Boy those days were intense. Luckily the second day ended on Friday with something we are all familiar with: a vrijmibo. This is not just any vrijmibo, this one is on the roof terrace on the 16th floor of the Accenture office! Since this first time, I have tried to be here every Friday. It is the best start of a weekend to finish a good week at work and one of the most down to earth ways to get to know other colleagues and find out what they do inside of the company.
Allow me to explain the content of my internship really quick. The first project I work on is part of the Accenture Innovation Awards in which start-ups compete within certain themes to see who has the best idea/pitch/innovation. Frankly, the work I do for that project reminds me a of the things I had to do for TaSC. However, this is not TaSC, this is the biggest innovation competition of the Netherlands and an exciting way to see the most innovative start-ups of our country.
If I have an idea I want to work on, I will get all the freedom to try it.
The second project I work on is called CodeMasters. For this project, Accenture employees go to schools to teach children the basics of coding. I have performed one of these lessons for the first time two weeks ago and it was awesome! These kids grew up with technology so even though they are 10, 11 or 12 years old, they already knew how to program a bit.
Working within a large corporate can be quite overwhelming, but the possibilities within the company are endless. If I have an idea I want to work on, I will get all the freedom to try it. To demonstrate this freedom: as of two weeks ago I started my own project within CodeMasters. I became project leader for setting up a curriculum for teaching Refugees how to code. Starting on the first of December, a pilot group of 20 refugees around the age of 18 will have 2 hours of coding lessons a week, for 12 weeks. If it all works out, they will have a basic understanding of Python and with that, a better chance on the labour market.
The only downside is that it is work, and working takes long hours which is the reason why I am glad that I still have my master ahead of me to have a little more fun before I dive into this phase.
Concluding I would like to share one of the insights I got from this internship. I started this internship to find out if I like the consultancy world and my conclusion is: yes, I do. I love the freedom within the company to grow, expand my knowledge, try a different approach, work in an environment I haven’t worked in before and meet wonderful other ambitious young people. The only downside is that it is work, and working takes long hours which is the reason why I am glad that I still have my master ahead of me to have a little more fun before I dive into this phase. Hopefully I gave you good sneak peak into Accenture, but if you consider working or doing an internship for this company, feel free to give me a call.
Joep van der Weijden
