Summer Intern Review

I had a good, varied experience working in the Treasury function within Barclays. There was a good variety of work both for me to shadow and engage with myself. I got on well with the other interns and so there was a good social element too - this also helped to make the office seem more friendly; instead of being the only intern you could always see others dotted around to go and chat to every now and again.

I had a few different desk locations, which had an effect on my interactions with my team. Initially I was on a different row and so it was hard to feel involved and a part of the team. However once I then moved into their row I could chat to colleagues and ask about the work I was doing much more easily. I also felt like colleagues found it easier to chat to me and so this helped me to feel more valued.

I had brief weekly meetings with my line manager and also a more significant mid-term review to provide feedback and guidance. I felt like these were valuable as it can be difficult to judge your impact within a new working environment. I think I would have found even more feedback sessions useful as this would have enabled me to improve at an even quicker rate.

As the internship progressed I became increasingly busy. Initially, with a very limited pool of knowledge I was unable to add much value and so the pieces of work I had weren't too extensive. However, moving into the second half of the internship I was able to own a few more projects/pieces of work which kept me much busier. This part of the internship was much better for me as I liked having independent work that I could get on with myself immediately once I got in in the morning.

I was given a fair amount of responsibility during the second half of my internship. I ended up giving two different presentations to my team while creating a further three that were distributed to the team by other means. I was given tasks and trusted to get on with them myself, without frequent intervention, which meant I was able to do the work and present back something that reflected what I was capable of.

I learnt lots of very practical skills around excel and powerpoint which I think will prove particularly when I enter the workplace in the future. I have also learnt a lot about interacting in the workplace and office culture which I think will also help me in the future in this kind of environment. I think university is very different to the internship experience and so I don't think there are too many skills that I can bring back to my degree.

The general atmosphere was good for me, it was not too noisy and so I was able to get on with work when I wanted to however there was still a culture that people could walk around and chat to each other which I liked. My team were also friendly and good fun; this meant we could have a laugh during the day while working which was much better than just being glued to the computer screen.

The internship was well organised, with a range of events and speakers put on for the interns without providing excess structure. I think it is quite usual that a lot of the IT systems take a bit of time to get used to so there were a few minor roadbumps with getting logged on and being able to use the phones/printers etc.

The company gave us some training at the start of the internship in general financial markets information and we were also shown how to use the training academy website to teach ourselves. I think it would have been good to have a little bit more active training, particular on some of the elements more specific to our function (knowing some of the acronyms beforehand would have helped massively).

This is hard to answer as we don't find out whether we have got a graduate scheme until the end of the internship. Given that there seems to be higher competition this year it might be the case that it will be harder to get a job with them. I think if I wasn't given a grad scheme off this internship I would apply to other organisations instead of this one to gain a bit of variety.

There was a reasonably good social scene. We had a couple of colleague social events with colleagues and several with other interns. I think socialising with interns was better as there was much less pressure and we all felt like we could relax a bit more. This also improved as the internship went on and we got to know each other better. At the start it was more difficult and so potentially more social events could have helped us to get to know each other in the early stages.

I lived at home during the internship so was able to avoid having to pay living costs. When it came to socialising, the vast majority of bars and restaurants were very expensive compared to the prices I was used to at university. There is one pub in canary wharf that serves much cheaper food and drink and so we spent a lot of time there. In general though it is expensive to socialise in canary wharf and in the city.

We had relatively easy links to all different areas of london and so we were able to make use of lots of different nights in london. It also helped that several of the interns were renting houses and flats in the city and so were could go round to theirs after work and after nights out instead of having to get back home.

There were lots of opportunities for activities outside of work. I took part in a citizenship challenge based around giving a presentation to a charity on methods to improve their social media presence. I also got to take part in a few different olympics-themed activities. These included Beach volleyball, a run around the olympic park and also a function competition in running, cycling, swimming and rowing.