Summer Intern Review

I really enjoyed the projects I was given and the work that I was given the opportunity to do. Towards the end of the internship it became clear that my skills would be best suited to another area of the bank and so I started spending time with other areas suggested by my manager, this was extremely interesting and I now know where I want to work in the future.

I felt very valued by my colleagues. They emphasised the importance of the work that I was doing for them and I very much felt like part of the team by the end of it. I was involved with all team events, both social and business, and in team meetings I was expected to contribute in the same way as all other team members. They provided me feedback on my projects and made sure to point outhow they would be rolled out to other teams.

Day to day I was supported by my internship buddy who was extremely helpful with making me feel settled into the company, helping me with general IT issues and also giving me good ideas for who to speak to in order to make the most of the internship. My manager worked with me to construct internship objectives which would be beneficial to both me and the company, we had regular meetings for feedback and again he was able to help set up meetings and shadowing with other teams. This was especially helpful towards the end of the internship when he was able to set up longer term shadowing with two teams so that I could work on some projects with them.

On a daily basis I was kept very busy. I always had business as usual tasks to perform alongside my project work. At the start of the internship the classroom training felt like it took too long because I was excited to get to the desk, but looking back it was necessary in order to make a more meaningful contribution to the team from day one. Whilst I was usually busy every day, the pace certainly picked up towards the end of the internship when I was simultaneously trying to shadow two separate teams whilst also doing some tasks for my original team.

I was initially given responsibility for certain business as usual tasks for the team. This was good as it meant that I got the opportunity to take them on fully and I was communicating with employees in other teams like a full time member of staff. I was also given projects which were of great use to the team, helping them to make substantial time savings and also providing the bank with information that was not easily viewable before. I was also took part in a conference call with Singapore which I led with another member of the team, during this I was responsibly for teaching the Singapore team how to use the new process I had designed.

A lot of the work that I did involved programming and during the internship I improved my knowledge of Python, R and SQL. My masters project next year is heavily computational so this knowledge will prove invaluable during that. The training that I have had in financial instruments has given me the confidence to engage in discussions about them and the relative merits of different structures, this will be helpful as I hope to transition into a role in the banking world upon graduation.

The general atmosphere in the office was friendly, everybody had the time to sit and talk with me and teach me something about their particular area of expertise. There was a noticeable difference in atmosphere between different departments, the trading floors were more tense and within that equities were much quieter than macro. Having the opportunity to experience these differences was good as it has allowed me to see what I might be letting myself in for.

The internship was mainly well organized but there was some initial confusion with the department I was in. Initially we were told we would be rotating to another team half way through, then later we were told this was not going to be the case. There were also a few meetings that were cancelled or rescheduled, but that is the nature of the beast in a big business.

The company invested in a comprehensive training package at the start of the internship which lasted a few days and prepared us for when we first hit the desk. They also set up meetings for small groups of us with very senior figures so that we could hear about their career paths, ask questions about their motivations and listen to their ideas about the future of the bank and the sector overall.

They are very appealing, everybody I spoke to was positive about working at Barclays. It appears that there is room for easy movement within the business, with several of the senior people I spoke to having moved departments multiple times within their career. This really appeals to me as if you find your interest beginning to lie elsewhere you are supported in transitioning into that areas rather than being shown the door. Barclays seems to be interested in investing in talent and keeping it.

The social scene was not amazing, maybe I wasn't really speaking to the right people but events didn't take place too regularly. At times I also felt there was a lot of direct competition between different interns and found myself being regularly questioned on my actions and which teams I had managed to get time with. I felt this tiresome as I don't like to engage in that sort of one-upmanship.

The job was in Canary Wharf and I was living in the surrounding area so accommodation in particular was very expensive. I do think it is a little bit of a myth about how expensive it is to go out in London, yes there are the places that are very expensive but are by no means limited by them. There are plenty of places to enjoy yourself without spending the Earth.

The nightlife in Canary Wharf itself was slightly limited, mainly just some bars but there were some more quirky restaurants nearby. The nightlife in the rest of London of course cannot really be faulted, you're in a global city and there will be something their for everybody's taste. There is the argument about price, but like I said, this doesn't have to be a problem.

As far as I am aware there weren't many opportunities to get involved in other things purely outside of work. However, there was a chance to get involved in the company's citizenship program. This involved charities coming in with problems that they need solving and interns working in small groups to try and find a solution. This was interesting and good fun, but the problem was a standard marketing issue and I feel that it would have been good to be challenged with something else.