My Work Experience at Daneswood by Jade

Hello, I am Jade, I am currently still in education in my last year of GCSE’s and I have come to Daneswood for some work experience. I am studying media and graphic design, and I came here to get a better grasp on what working in an office is like and to learn new things that could help me decide what type of job I’d like to work in. I have even learnt new ways of using the programs I already had knowledge using, these new skills will help me in my exams and later in life. I am very grateful to have had this experience at Daneswood.

On my first day, I experienced an extremely welcoming environment and a brief walkthrough of the office and how things worked. I was given 5 days’ worth of tasks in which things got added or removed from the list throughout the week. After looking through this document, I then received a basic explanation on what programs Daneswood uses and how they work, some of these programs were WordPress, password management and their ticketing system. These programs intrigued me, and I started to learn more aspects of how some of them worked – specifically WordPress. I went through 5 days’ worth of training whilst at Daneswood on how to use WordPress, I now have a more developed understanding of what WordPress does and how to use it.

During my experience, I learnt what a CMS system was and all the different uses and types of CMS systems. I also helped to launch a website, and I checked it over to see if there were any errors or mistakes. To put it live, I changed the IP address to launch the new version of the website. During this launch, Beth, Daneswood’s Head of Project Management, gave me a short but detailed description of the WAF and how the direction of the website traffic changed due to the WAF and stopped most malicious attacks on the website. I then learnt why branding is important for your company and what you should and shouldn’t do. I even made a logo to show my understanding! I have also learnt how to do plugin updates, which has changed the way I think of websites and how they work.

The whole time, I never felt lost, I always had something to do and if I needed extra tasks, Beth, Izzy and Liberty were quick to give me some more work to do. This was good as I then felt as if I was a part of the team contributing to the tasks and work that needed to be done.

During my time here, I have sat in meetings and understood how the company works; in these meetings, I gained an understanding of how a workplace should be and how coworkers should communicate. It intrigues me that they have such a complex variety of plugins that all contribute to different functions of the website. During this time, I have tried my best to listen and meet the briefs and tasks I am given. I have designed many things for the team in which some have been used and some haven’t, I have also learnt how to wireframe and why that is important to not skip, as the client will be able to see a structure that can be easily changed and simple to understand.

Overall, I am extremely lucky to have been able to have this experience, and I am thankful to the whole team as they have all been friendly and have treated me like a coworker, even though I have only spent limited days in the office with them. The team have all worked with and around me, giving me feedback and advice on my work; they have all treated me equally, even when I had a question or needed help with something I didn’t understand yet.

I am glad that I had the opportunity to do this as it can help me decide what I’d like to do for work and give me a better understanding of how things would work in an office. Thank you to everyone in the office for welcoming me into your workplace, and thank you all for having me; it has been wonderful!