Why ITMB meant I wasn’t thrown in at the deep end
Have you ever watched the BBC show Industry? Before I went on my internship at UBS in June 2024, I watched a few episodes. If you watched it, you probably know how scary it all looks, being dropped into those high-stakes environments. Let me quickly tell you that the show is not a realistic portrayal.
In 2023, after an intensive application process, I received a phone call announcing I had received an offer to join the UBS Technology team for a year-long industrial placement. I immediately knew that, whilst it was extremely exciting, this would still be quite the jump into new territory.
I joined the company as a Cloud FinOps Analyst. UBS utilises Cloud, used by many of the 40,000 or so technology employees at the firm. My team was tasked with processing the Cloud Bill every month, allocating the costs based on who used what. And with the bill, we created dashboards to help showcase to employees how much they spent and provide recommendations on how to optimise their usage to reduce cost and carbon impact.
My role was to look after our internal customer support service, where people sent support tickets, and I had to answer and work with them to solve their issues, and support optimisation initiatives, such as building automations to make our team’s work easier and more efficient.
If you know anything about the BSc Information Technology Management For Business (ITMB), which I am undertaking, you can see why the internship was a good fit. Much of my work didn’t involve receiving clear instructions; I had to speak to people, read into technicals, and extract instructions myself. I couldn’t just make something — I had to present the work and guide its users to help them use it effectively. None of this is foreign to me, as I had worked like this from day one in ITMB.
While on the course, when we worked on our Integrative Team Projects, we were always conducting a thorough analysis of the Situation – the “why we are doing things” – before making a Solution. And in doing so, I also grew more confident in presenting my work. If you have done the homework, what do you have to fear from questions?
As you can tell, it was not just about the technology — ITMB helps you prepare for all you can encounter in the business world, too.
The course also strengthened my comfort level with speaking to people and networking. From pretty much the first few weeks of first year, we already got direct exposure to the industry. We had high-level people from Fujitsu, P&G, and others coming into classes, speaking to us, and making us ask them questions, and even working on past problems they themselves have worked on for our assessments.
Being comfortable with the industry before entering it was invaluable, and I did not feel as much of a fish-out-of-water as characters such as Harper from the show Industry. Let’s also not forget all the technical learning I had from ITMB; this helped massively when walking into UBS, trying to understand what everything was and how I could contribute.
Overcoming challenges and building confidence
One thing you cannot run away from is imposter syndrome. I was a former actor who had just made the transition to IT and Business only about two years prior, and I was surrounded by interns who were smarter than me, and industry veterans watching my every move. However, it was ITMB that made me feel more comfortable.
Through the course, I learned that tech and business is a melting pot of different people with different backgrounds, interests, and competencies. Whilst there was an adjustment period where I had to understand the corporate working life, I felt comfortable going through it, knowing I wasn’t the only one. Being in close contact with my placement tutor, the school’s placement team, and my fellow ITMB students on placement made me feel less alone on that journey.
By being able to jump into the industry before graduation, I’ve already taken one great leap forward in my career. From my own experience and those I have spoken to, getting industry experience this early in your life is immeasurable. When you return to university in your final year, or go on to take a graduate job, you are already more well-versed in the problems faced in industry and the tools needed to solve them than many others.
Taking on an industrial placement gave me a greater sense of what is out there, and I feel it is helping me massively in my quest to find graduate jobs today. Whilst shows like Industry do dramatise and make you feel a little scared to take that plunge into the working world, the show does a great job in showcasing the exciting step up from academics to the world of work. If you can overcome that fear quickly, you are in for one incredible learning journey.
