Data Intern Review

Technology is one of those areas where you can really make a difference, even if you're only in the business for a couple of months. I had many opportunities to present ideas and make significant impacts to projects, and even how things are done in Barclays to a certain extent. For the most part, the work was engaging and interesting - I learnt a lot and I felt free to expand my learning and explore new ways to contribute to the business and build upon my own knowledge.

I was fortunate to be placed into a very friendly team (Data Products & Platform) who went out of their way to make me feel welcome and valued, they always listened to (and encouraged) my suggestions and ideas. They allowed me to have a lot of responsibility, and I took ownership of a large part of a project which had the potential for global impact. Even our team leader, who is a board-level exec, was always available and happy to chat and was actively interested in my progress. They were always very accommodating, and were overall a really fantastic bunch of people.

My line manager and also the other leadership people in the team were excellent at providing advice, teaching me the work and guiding my own development. My first line manager resigned during the internship, so I was assigned a new line manager who was a recent grad. She was brilliant and did a really good job as a manager.

This varied daily, at the start of the internship I wasn't as busy because a lot of my software didn't work as I was waiting for requests to be processed. However there were days that I worked later than usual, but I didn't mind doing that because we worked strongly together as a team to get things done and we were all dedicated to our projects and the quality of them. But overall, an excellent work-life balance.

Technology is also one of those areas where you can take responsibility early to produce innovative work... I was given a lot of responsibility for my assignments on various projects. I was allowed to make my own choices on my methods of completing tasks, and I was given the responsibility of deciding the best way to achieve results. Furthermore, I was given challenging objectives that I was responsible for completing.

Hugely, I'm quite amazed about the exposure I've gained to what is actually happening on the frontlines of technology and the banking industry - particularly in the AI and Data spaces. This will be particularly useful to me in my final year of undergraduate study because it will guide me on my dissertation topic and also in my general learning. I learnt about expanding areas of technology that I previously was unaware of, and I feel like I've been been exposed to where the real world is going - outside the bubble of academia. Working at Barclays gave me an insight into the future of technology, banking and even the world in some ways.

Everyone was very friendly in my office and it was quite a motivating environment because everyone was clearly working hard and collaborating within their teams. I worked on two different floors, and one was a lot quieter and more relaxed than the other. However, ironically the floor that had more of the quirky stuff e.g. a table tennis table was a lot more fast-paced than the other, which looked more like a typical office.

Excellently organised, from the start to finish, with lots of opportunities to hear speakers across the business and to attend networking events. However, I liked how interns were able to set up their own events because this meant that interns were able to take responsibility for their own networking and they didn't feel obliged to attend a meeting etc. Anyway, HR did a great job of selecting roles for people etc.

One of my favourite things about the internship was the opportunities I had to learn. I learned a huge amount during my time on the internship, and had the chance to use a wide range of software. I had the responsibility to be able to choose which software I'd like to use and the team made a lot of effort to help me learn everything, although I mostly learned on my own initiative. We also had HR-organised events to teach us about the bank.

As I write this, I am yet to learn whether I have received an offer or not, however there is clearly a huge range of opportunities within the company to try things out. However, I am pretty certain of where I want to start within the company, having had a lot of opportunity to learn where would be best for me. Barclays offers an incredible learning experience as well as the opportunity to contribute to an incredibly successful company. This is one of the most relevant companies to be in, in one of the most relevant industries, in the most relevant city in the world.

There was a bit of a social scene, it wasn't that good, there were some intern organised events. However, although the social scene was relatively poor amongst interns (and also was sometimes just amongst certain friend groups etc etc) I think forcing social events upon us wouldn't have been a good alternative. I think Barclays provided ample opportunities for us to network with each other and set up these events ourselves.

Ridiculously expensive. However, our salaries can compensate for these costs. For example, a room is likely to cost between £800-1200 per month, and a pint costs about £4.50. Food and shops in Canary Wharf are generally expensive. Furthermore, just travelling from Surrey Quays each day (a couple of stops) cost about £16 per week. However, we were given a grant which helped a lot with these costs.

Not really that great, there are lots of bars and they are really expensive. Can't blame Barclays for that.

Yes there were a couple of opportunities but these were mostly organised by interns or within teams, Barclays didn't organise this - but then again we should really be organising things like this if we have an interest, and we did.