Welcome to the new Pamoja interns’ blog! We are Josh, Emilie and James, the new 2017 interns at Pamoja. Follow our journey as we give you an insight into working life at Pamoja, showing you what we do, how we do it and everything in between.
Who are we?
I’m Josh, a business intern here at Pamoja. I study Business and Marketing Management at Oxford Brookes University, where I acquire an in-depth understanding of Marketing in the context of international business. After consideration, I decided to start looking for placements to help me gain valuable experience where I would be able to develop the skills that I have learnt whilst studying. Pamoja stood out to me through its reputable image at Brookes University; The company’s previous intern Libby helped to explain how empowering and innovative the company is. Having only started two weeks ago, I have come to realise how broad my role will be and how much I will be exposed to which in turn will help me develop. The Pamoja team have been so warm and inviting and have looked to integrate me into the team. The office environment is vibrant and I am already really enjoying my time here.
I’m Emilie and I am a business intern at Pamoja. I study International Business Management, which covers most aspects of business. It is great studying such a broad degree, as I learn how businesses work as a whole. However, I would like to discover which aspect of business I am most interested in and where my strengths lie. I hope to discover this at Pamoja. I decided to apply to Pamoja because the work environment sounded very friendly. The work they do is also very forward-thinking and innovative, and having studied the IB myself I wanted to help IB students, as I understand how challenging it can be. I’ve worked here for 2 weeks now and my expectations have not been let down. Working at Pamoja is great! Everyone is very friendly and extremely welcoming and helpful. The office is energetic, with everyone working on exciting projects and continuously coming up with new ideas to improve and expand.
I’m James and I’m Pamoja’s technical development intern! I’m a second-year Oxford Brookes University student, studying a double degree with equal weighting between Philosophy and Computer Science. I chose to apply to Pamoja’s technical development internship partly because I have a strong interest in education and am thinking about exploring teaching career pathways after I graduate in 2019 (all things going well), and partly because of my long-established passion for technology and computing. When I first came to Oxford Brookes I was only planning to study Philosophy, but I was given a choice to add any modules from any subject onto my timetable if I wanted to. I chose the core Computer Science modules as I’d recently started to teach myself the basics of programming. It’s a good job I did, because without that I wouldn’t be here at Pamoja! From my year here I want to be able to gain experience of as many different departments as possible – from development to business and even the newly emerging area of user experience. After experiencing a bit of everything I hope to further understand my strengths and areas of interest. Besides, the more you put into your placement year the more you get out of it!
Recap
During our two weeks at Pamoja we’ve crammed in meetings with every department head, and started to understand how each department interacts with one another. The most important department for us right now is School Services, where we’ve all been learning the ropes for the past two weeks, but we will eventually move around to other departments that match our own interests such as HR, Marketing, Finance and Technical Development. That’s the great thing about Pamoja; if we want more experience within a certain department then everyone will be very accommodating and do what needs to be done to make it happen.
Overview week 1
Our first working day at Pamoja started on the 3rd of July and was a very exciting/ nerve-racking day. None of us knew what to expect, what our roles would be, even the names of our fellow interns. Being a university student on a placement course, you often hear horror stories about other people’s placements; awful co-workers or being confined to make photocopies and coffee for 8 hours a day…
After finding our way to the office we met each other in the reception of the building, and it was great to know that we’d be sharing our experience. We were firstly taken out for lunch at a pizzeria right next to work, which as far as first impressions go, is definitely a brilliant start! After delicious pizzas, we got to know more of the team, their roles and how these different roles connect together. Our first week mainly consisted of getting to know our colleagues and the company – we were taken out of the office a lot to go for coffees and really get to know the team on a more personal level.
Overview week 2
At the start of week two, Pamoja organised a football match. It was a great match with some skilled players and a final score of 5-5. The social fun did not stop there, as on Tuesday we had the ‘Pamoja Summer Party’. First the most amazing ice cream van turned up at the office and everyone was allowed to have as many ice creams as they wanted! Then we all headed to an oriental buffet where we stuffed ourselves. Afterwards, we went to the City Mazes, divided into different teams to battle against each other for the quickest escape time through locked rooms. Although the blue team won, the purple team should be credited for their great purple outfits and team spirit. Both these events were great opportunities for us to get to know our colleagues a lot better and become part of the team.
So, our first two weeks have been great – thank you for reading our blog!
Emilie, James and Josh – Pamoja Interns
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