One week at PDMS by Lewis Hartley

Lewis Hartley, who is in Year 10 at St Ninians High School on the Isle of Man, joined us for one week of work experience. He spent time with several different departments and has written about his week.

Monday

On my first day, I was with the Design team at PDMS. I was shown a new Adobe program called XD. Previously, I had only learned Photoshop and Dreamweaver at school, so this was a new challenge.

Using my new-found skills, I completed an XD design tutorial which was followed by an XD prototype tutorial, both were very challenging. After that, I tried to create an update to the Bus Vannin bus tracker which was developed by PDMS. And at the end of the day, I learned how to create a carousel in XD. 

Tuesday

I spent the morning with the Design team where I was asked to make a website for a work experience project involving the fictitious PDMS Airlines. This website was challenging but was also very fun to create. I also learned some information about PDMS as a business and how they work with clients.  

Wednesday

I spent the morning at The Nunnery attending a talk on accessibility. The event highlighted the issues of people who live with accessibility issues and what needs to be done to change these problems.

In the afternoon, I joined the Infrastructure team where I was able to take apart an old server that needed repairing to learn and see what was inside. Later, I set up new laptops by putting in larger RAM and new hard drives. And later, I was able to see the working servers of PDMS. 

Thursday 

I worked with the Infrastructure team and my day started with me taking an assessment on web safety. I was proud to pass the test with a score of 84.75% which granted me a certificate of achievement in Managing Web Risks.

Later that day, I completed an ISO training course which was very informative. After that, I was able to completely take apart a laptop which was so much fun. I was also able to learn what happens inside a computer when it's working and I was able to learn more about computer components. 

Friday

At the start of the day, I was with the Marketing team. First, I completed some market research for PDMS which consisted of me finding businesses that PDMS can partner with in the future. I also wrote this article!

Later on, I worked with HR for the first time and we spent some time working on my CV and interview techniques. 

Looking back at the the end of my experience, I have learned new skills and made very good memories. All I can say is a big thank you to everyone at PDMS in the Isle of Man for letting me join you for a week and complete my work experience!