January 20, 2025, by Joe

Tunde Henz – University of Nottingham Sport

I started my postgraduate course at the University of Nottingham this year and applied to the Social Sciences Placement Program even before arriving in the city. It seemed like a fantastic opportunity to explore a career path I was interested in—and it turned out to be an amazing experience.

Gaining Hands-On Experience as a Data Analyst Intern

I worked as a Data Analyst Intern at University of Nottingham Sport for 10 weeks, dedicating just seven hours per week. The schedule was highly flexible; I could work all seven hours in one day or split them across multiple days. Additionally, I had the freedom to choose between working from home or in the office. Typically, I opted to work from the office for 3-4 hours over two days each week. This flexibility allowed me to effectively balance my internship responsibilities with my academic and personal commitments.

The team I worked with was incredibly friendly and supportive, creating a positive and collaborative work environment. I felt comfortable asking questions and always received helpful guidance whenever I faced challenges. My supervisor was approachable, open to my suggestions, and genuinely valued my insights, which made me feel confident and motivated.

The work itself was highly rewarding. I’m the type of person who gets genuinely excited about large data sets, so working with live data was a thrilling experience. Most of my work involved Excel, and a significant part of the process was compiling datasets from different sources and cleaning the data. While this was the bulk of the work, I enjoyed exploring fast and efficient ways to handle these tasks. Once the data was cleaned, the ‘fun part’ began—I had the opportunity to analyse the data, create compelling statistics, draw meaningful conclusions, and design attractive visuals to present my findings.

Balancing Academic Life with Career Development

As a postgraduate student, balancing academic commitments with career development can be challenging, but this placement provided a perfect bridge between the two. The opportunity allowed me to apply the advanced theoretical knowledge gained through my studies to practical, real-world tasks. The Careers and Employability Service played a key role in facilitating this. Although I wasn’t able to participate in the workshops offered at the beginning and end of the programme, I appreciated that the team was consistently available for support when needed. Additionally, the Moodle course they provided was a rich repository of resources that proved useful in navigating my placement journey.

This internship has been a great opportunity for both professional and personal growth. It has given me a clearer understanding of what I want to do in the future, boosted my confidence, and allowed me to demonstrate responsibility. I enjoyed going to the office in the mornings and looked forward to continuing my work. This experience was so rewarding that I was thrilled to be offered the chance to continue on a paid basis after the internship ended. I’m excited to build on our previous project and apply the lessons I’ve learned to work with a new dataset.

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