SBS Blog > Experience matters: the benefits of internship by Akin Davies

Experience matters: the benefits of internship

By Akin Davies - Posted on 24 June 2021

Student Akin Davies did an internship as part of his year long Masters programme at Strathclyde Business School. Here, he talks about the programme and his experiences of the internship.

I am currently studying on the MSc in Business Analysis & Consulting programme in the Department of Management Science. I chose this course due to my work experience and exposure at management level - I realised that this course would further equip me with the necessary skills and tools needed to progress my career to the next stage. Prior to this programme, I was working in the financial sector both at operations and management level and have been involved in various project delivery. Hence, I chose this course as it aligned with my wealth of experience and carer path.

This course has given me the opportunity to learn new skills such as stakeholders management, scenario planning, various tools for risk management, etc. and I was also involved in various group works/assignments.

I chose Strathclyde as it has had an outstanding performance over the years and I believed it was the right institution to choose to set me on my next career path.

So far the programme has been so detailed and over and beyond my expectations. The quality of the lecturers is first class and they have provided a real ‘hands on’ experience. I have really enjoyed learning about the different tools in this subject as well as the exposure to solving real, live business problems.

For instance, I was lucky enough to be involved in the internships on offer in January. My internship was with North Lanarkshire Council (NLC) and my main task was to do a comprehensive review of a draft survey design for the identification of digital skills gaps among Small & Medium Enterprise (SMEs) in NLC as well as streamline the survey with a key focus on how the responses to each question will assist NLC to maximise the effectiveness of the survey. I learnt quite a lot of new skills within the three weeks of my apprenticeship; this included - but was not limited to - stakeholder engagement, how to elicit and validate requirements, buy-in of stakeholders, how to effectively communicate with other departments, prioritisation of requirement and planning/managing deployment.

I was delighted to receive extremely positive feedback from the internship and NLC are looking to engage me on another project which is an excellent outcome from this internship and proves what a valuable part of the BAC programme this part of it is.

The internship has definitely helped me with the decision on what to do post-graduation - I am now considering furthering my career by doing a PhD research programme with the University of Strathclyde.