Working for one of the “Big Four” accounting firms is giving a De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) student a chance to put the theory into practice and could lead to a career with global opportunities.
Gautam Devaraju, studying Computer Security, is enjoying a one-year placement at the Manchester office of the multinational professional services firm EY (formerly Ernst & Young) before returning to DMU to complete his course.
“I’m an assurance analyst and required to handle huge amounts of data – often thousands of gigabytes – to resolve many different issues for many different clients.
“I have to locate, secure and identify evidence which can be used in a civil or criminal legal cases – it could be from emails, financial metrics or digital footprints.
“A lot of modules on my course are very similar to what I’m doing here and the theoretical concepts have been very easy to apply to real life.”
Gautam says the job is going well and hopes it could become permanent once he’s finished his degree: “It’s an absolutely amazing learning experience. Every day is different.
“I’m treated as a member of staff, so if I’m offered a post I won’t have to repeat this year and I can become a level-two associate.
“EY has offices all over the UK and the best part of the job is that I get the chance to travel to other countries to collect evidence from clients.”
He’s already looking forward to applying what he’s learned to his studies: “I handle a lot of different things which are definitely going to help me with my third-year project. It’s given me really good ideas for my dissertation.”
He found the placement on Facebook and then went through a challenging three-phase selection process. “Robin Kaur, in the DMU Placements Team, advised me how to refine my CV for the role and arranged mock interviews, which really helped me a lot.”
Gautam is from Bangalore, India: “I chose DMU because its cyber security courses were highly rated but it’s also been so welcoming. It is very multicultural and feels like home.”
He has embraced the opportunities on offer at university, becoming a Frontrunner working for De Montfort Students’ Union as an online resource developer, taking part in a DMU Square Mile project to inspire children to learn about coding, and joining the Indian, Hindu and chess societies.
Posted on Friday 2 December 2016