Group Technology Intern Review

I have enjoyed my internship as I feel I have been given a good level of responsibility and trust to implement relatively significant features of the project. There have been weekly interesting and motivational talks given to us and also social activities which have helped us to get to know each other better and network in an informal environment, for example the Strawberries & Cream Challenge Day at the Golden Lane office and the BYOBeats Intern Farewell Party.

I have around 6/7 team members but I am only really close to one of them. I feel he values my work and gives me good feedback about it, but I have no way of knowing if the others value me as I do not speak to them much and they do not know what I am working on nor see the results of my work.

I have not received much support from my Line Manager as he is not the person who assigns me my tasks and probably would not be able to help me if I asked for technical help. Also, being an Executive Director he is very busy all day and I feel perhaps Executive Directors should not be allowed to take on interns as they do not have the time to fully support them. However, another member of my team has been very supportive and put a lot of time and effort into helping me on numerous occasions.

My days varied in terms of how busy I was. Some days I had big features to implement and enjoyed how busy I was, other days I had almost nothing to do and was often given documents to read. It would have been nice to use a Jira Sprint Board where I could simply pick up tasks without needing the team member who assigns me tasks to be present, which was an issue when he was away for 2 weeks on paternity leave.

I feel I was definitely given a good level of responsibility throughout the internship, having implemented 3 relatively significant parts of the project. The parts I worked on could have a major impact on the output of the project and I was pleasantly surprised that I was given the responsibility to do them independently.

I just recently graduated so the skills I have developed will not be able to assist me in my degree studies, however I feel they will be able to help me in my future career. I have developed my Java and Python skills further, which could be helpful in future Developer roles, However, if I move to a non-technical role in Technology in the future then these skills will not be transferrable.

The atmosphere in the Golden Lane offices is not quite as exciting as the atmosphere in Broadgate due to a combination of being a smaller and less modern building and also the fact that there is a much narrower range of divisions here. However, there was a tennis themed social event with games and food which was very fun and created a great competitive atmosphere in the office.

Overall, the internship was organized quite well with a week of mandatory training followed by 8 weeks at ours desks. However, I did not have access to my IT account until two and a half weeks in and this was highly frustrating as I lost precious time from an already short 9 week internship. IT access should be ready from the first day at our desks for all interns.

The company invested a lot into our first week of training, hiring external companies to give us our training sessions. However, I did not feel the majority of the sessions were necessary or massively helpful. It perhaps would have been better to have received technical divisional training rather than generic firm wide training. Some of the Technology interns had to learn new programming languages and it would have been helpful for them to have been taught them in the first week.

The employment prospects are very appealing. My manager has been trying to get me on the grad scheme starting this year rather than next year as my gap year plans fell through, showing the level of flexibility UBS provides. Also, he informed me if I am unable to join this year's grad scheme then he would be happy to hire me as a contractor, so I have good prospects of employment here and I would be happy to accept them.

Yes there was a good social scene and we would go for drinks together most Fridays. Also, there was a Strawberries & Cream Tennis themed social day at my office which was fun and involved games and food and drink. Also, we were granted the budget to organize a leaving social event for the interns at a small bar. However, I did not socialize with my team members and was only invited to drinks with them once or twice. I felt the age gap between me and them was too large.

I lived in Bethnal Green and socialized in the Liverpool Street and Old Street areas. These areas are expensive for cost of living and socializing as they are in central London. I paid £720 a month for a double room and when socializing drinks would cost at least £5 so it was all quite expensive compared to my home city Leeds.

The night life was good, with famous bars and clubs such as Bounce, Dirty Martini, All Bar One, Cargo and XOYO all within close proximity of both my home and office. However, as mentioned above, these places were expensive, with drinks starting at £5 and entry going up to £20, which made them far less accessible and appealing for us.

There were a decent number of opportunities to get involved in outside of work, including the Strawberries & Cream Tennis themed social day, a volunteering day at Mile End Park where we trimmed hedges in teams, and the BYOBeats Intern Farewell social event where we hired out a small bar for the night.