Summer Analyst Review

Thoroughly enjoyed the internship as you could tell a lot of planning and thought had gone into making it as rewarding as possible. There were challenges outwith our daily tasks that we took part in and were fun and beneficial.

Everyone that I came into contact with was very nice and treated me as if I worked there. I attended several social events with my team and was even taken out to dinner when I was leaving. My contribution to the team was also acknowledged and made me felt like I was helping them out.

I was assigned a mentor, who I had bi-weekly meetings with, as well as a buddy who was someone on the current grad programme. I also had catch up meetings with my manager every second week and half way through for an appraisal. This helped a lot and made sure that any issues I had were dealt with.

I was given a manageble amount of work to do that was part of the team's workload. The deadlines were obviously set in stone but there was never an issue. We were also given two additional challenges to do throughout the internship with other interns from all the offices which was good but took up time too.

I was given a great deal of responsibility and was taking over business as usual work from my colleagues. Although at the start this brought some pressure, I preferred it much more than just having other tasks that were designed for interns.

They put on a really good skills session on presenting which was very beneficial and has helped me in university. I also learnt a lot of Excel skills that are extremely helpful. General people skills and confidence has also came from it.

The atmosphere was very friendly and the manager encouraged chat and socialising. It was nice to always stop and talk to people around the office and have people stop by your desk for a chat.

It was extremely well set up and you could tell that a huge amount of planning had gone into it. Weekly skills sessions were put on and talks from senior people in the company. I also had work of varying difficulties set out for me that had deadlines throughout my time.

They brought in a man who owned his own company to give a half day session on presenting skills which was very enjoyable and every intern found it both fun and helpful. They also had online training that helped with a number of things. My manager also took a lot of time to teach me about the processes in the company.

I have been offered a graduate position with the company and they make it clear from the outset that you have a chance in securing one.

There were only 14 interns and so we all became very close throughout it. Blackrock were key to this aswell as they planned a number of events to get us all to socialise such as bowling, dinner, challenges. The staff in BlackRock also went out for lunches, dinners and drinks for people's birthdays and just to socialise which I attended.

Edinburgh is quite expensive but I live here so I have nothing to compare it to.

There is so much to do, particularly in August during the festival so we were comstantly out to see shows. Numerous bars and nightclubs within walking distance of the office.

The working day was 9-5 Monday to Friday so there was plenty of time to do activities after work. There were a great number of events that had been organised and paid for by BlackRock that were after work. The interns and I also went to see lots of shows in the festival and went for dinner together alot.