SCV Intern Review

Considering this placement if far from my main university discipline, I am enjoying this internship. It's given me the opportunity to focus on different core skills that I may not get the chance to build on during the academic year. It has allowed me to explore other ventures and provide other options other than Pharmacy.

I felt quite valued by my colleagues, especially when asked if I had capacity to support throughout the day during our morning huddles. I felt part of the team. Also when I would do tasks for colleagues that were not part of my internship projects, it was nice to know that I had the skills and knowledge to be able to help.

I did get a lot of support from my team manager who I also reported to when not reporting to my line manager. She was more like a friend than a colleague, very approachable, a people’s person. She knew how to support me. My line manager was also quite supportive but I did find that sometimes she did necessarily know how to convey information to me in the most beneficial way. This did mean I struggled a little bit.

The days when I weren’t relying on others to send me things back were usually quite busy and the fact that I worked 8am-5:30pm in order to have three days off to work did mean I had to make sure I did as much as I could before those three days. However, the days I was waiting on for things to come through were somewhat less busy but could always be filled with some Discover Learning.

Considering I was on my very first internship and that I was completely knew to the finance sector, I didn’t have too much responsibility. However, a couple of the bigger projects meant that others were relying on me before they could present to seniors or others which did add another level of pressure.

I’ve definitely got to say that I will be using all the skills developed during my internship again at university. Time management skills have definitely improved which will help me with the planning and organising of my university work, balancing my social life and making sure I stay healthy and active. A lot of the excel skills I’ve picked up with be used again especially during my final degree year during my own research project.

The office atmosphere was varied depending on where I was sitting and which office I was at. For example sitting with my daily team was a lot of fun as there was quite a bit of friendly banter and my colleagues were lovely people. However, sometimes the noise levels were not too great to be working in productively and so I had to resort to wearing my headphones so I could get on with my duties. This is probably the down side of an open plan office.

Pretty well organised but I do wish my line manager was more in the know over things that I had to do as part of my Lloyds Scholarship.

There wasn’t much specified or mandatory training for me to do according to my line manager, however, I did take it upon myself to do basic mandatory training that my team would have done. Especially the training for excel and other packages that would come in handy. Personally I asked to do the Professional Banker Qualification - Discover Learning even though it wasn’t needed for my tasks.

Considering I’m still 90% set on doing a job within my degree area, I wouldn’t choose to do a job in this sector. However, it has enabled me to keep an open mind and possibly give me an option if I for some reason do not go through with Pharmacy. I think I would consider a job in the finance sector more if I would see the benefits more for me.

Not really. I think a lot of us first time interns were just trying to get used to working a 9-5 job. Also at my work place a lot of the outings I was not able to make due to prior committments but I was always invited to which was lovely. And I'm definitely going to make the effort to go to the joint team meeting that I organised in September and hopefully attend the conference I helped organise.

Considering I'm a student, expensive but there were student nights which had cheaper deals. Also we would usually bargain hunt and see which places had offers if we, a group of interns, were going out together.

I didn't go out much due to revision for an exam I had. But from my knowledge from being a student in the area I worked in, B'ham has a pretty decent nightlight Broad Street/ Rainbow Venues).

Not many that were not related to work but from the Charity Challenge side I did do a charity cycle.