My Time in Jail - Intern Mark Cochrane at This is Milk

Mark Cochrane

Digtal Intern, This is Milk

Mark, our digital intern from Glasgow Clyde College, tells us about his placement at This is Milk

I was just enjoying my time in college when Ruby Mitchell (the college organiser) said that I will be attending a work placement to fit in with my college course. My course was centered around all things to do with computers, from hardware to webpage design, and I found it all very enjoyable as I have a keen interest in computers and electronics.
​However, during a two-week break, I was invited to attend an interview for a company called ‘This is Milk’

At first I wasn't sure what to think, but I decided ‘why not?‘ I travelled all the way to the interview to be greeted with a surprise when I found out that the office was located in an old renovated prison cell. Although the setting wasn't the usual place I would expect an office to be, I still continued and agreed that I would happily work there for the time that they needed me.

The first day dawned. I entered the room and was greeted by my new ‘cell mates’. They gave me my desk, email address and login details and I was soon up and running, ready to be briefed with my very first tasks.

I was first asked to help test a development website for a client project that was underway. The website was UFiiT.com. I found a few small mistakes that I then had to document on Trello, which lets you share your findings instantly with everybody in the group (pretty cool right?). Although I only found a few small issues like misspelt words I still felt very accomplished and armed with my new skill I scoured over the entire website once again.

If we skip a few days and go to the Friday of that week, this was when the project team meeting was held. I was sitting on the other side of the room, minding my own business when I saw them doing something that confused me at first. They were writing directly onto the walls! Well maybe not directly - they were using magic whiteboard charts that stick to the wall using static, but still.

As the weeks have progressed I learned lots of new skills that I never had when I first entered the prison. Some of the main ones were logging bug (or 'defect') reports and how to edit web pages using things content management systems like Weebly and Wordpress.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at This is Milk, which allowed me to see how a real business handles their client’s needs when building a website and how they produce the final product. Everybody was very friendly and helped me with whatever I needed. So a massive thanks to everybody at This is Milk!

---

Learn more about This is Milk:

Learn more

(Blog first published 06/09/2016)