Associate Review

I really enjoyed my internship. It was challenging at times but was very rewarding and I learnt a great deal about working in that sort of environment. The team I was placed in was supportive and made me feel valued, I was given a really great amount of responsibility ,and while I mostly worked on one big project I was free to support others on their projects which resulted in a nice variety of work.

I felt really valued by everyone in my team, and they made me feel like I had made a genuine difference to the team. I did not feel like a typical intern stereotype with menial jobs as I was always given as much responsibility as anyone else on my team and was even sometimes in charge of organising people who were technically more senior than me.

My manager set up weekly catch-ups which were informal discussions about what I had done in the past week, any challenges I faced or questions I wanted to ask, and then what the short-term plans were. This was also the setting for my mid-internship review. She made herself available to me whenever I wanted to ask for clarification, but allowed me my independence and otherwise would not check up on how I was doing which was nice. I also felt like I could go to other members of my team for advice on different areas, and the office environment was nice in that I could walk up to someone's desk and if they couldn't give me the time right then they would happily set up a diary invite to talk to me or discuss aspects of my work. It didn't feel like there was a strict hierarchy I had to follow when seeking or offering help which contributed to the great environment.

Due to the nature of the project I was working on, some days or even hours of the day were incredibly busy while others I was free to work on smaller projects. There was usually always something for me to be getting on with, and if not I just asked around my team and there was always something one of them needed help with or an extra pair of eyes on. Because it was not always easy to predict how busy the main project work would be (just in its nature rather than an organisational flaw), some times I was too busy which could be stressful, but I quickly learnt that people were happy to help out and take some of my work, or be flexible with deadlines. In this sense the internship taught me a great deal about time management.

I was given a great degree of responsibility and this was probably the best thing I will take out of the internship. I was working on a publication and at one point I was in charge of a part of the paper which was a great deal of responsibility as I was in charge of any editorial changes, responding to feedback from others and also making sure it remained in line with the other parts of the paper. At one point I was also put in charge of coordinating how the team would work while we got through a particularly chaotic time - this involved assigning work to people, keeping effective records and making sure that deadlines were met. This was really valuable and I was always supported if need be by people in my team and my manager, so the responsibility didn't get overwhelming.

I am studying a numerate degree so actually a lot of the work wasn't particularly relevant, but this is what I wanted and asked for from my manager so it was great. A lot of the technical skills I learnt such as document management, referencing, report writing will not help in my degree but will inevitably be useful in later life, especially if I come back to the FCA. Wider skills I learned will be useful in all aspects of life and I have developed many skills and personal attributes. These include communication, especially as part of a team; time management; professionalism in communication, both internally and externally; knowledge of regulation as a whole, with a particular focus on consumer facing; and confidence, influence and judgement.

The general atmosphere was really friendly and collaborative. I was in a team but we sat with three other teams to make up our department. Desks were booked week-by-week so I got to sit with a great variety of people which was really useful, and most people were chatty and happy to help. The only downside of my particular department was that there weren't enough desks to go around which meant I was sometimes having to sit away from my team which made work much harder as it did involve wanting to talk to people easily.

The format of the 10 weeks staying in one department worked really well and my team organised my work well. The induction was good in the sense of introducing us to the FCA but we could have had more introduction into the systems we would use as we were thrown in. The internship programme was well set up in that we had opportunities to interact as interns in weekly learning lunches, These lunches were useful as they enabled us to see all the different areas of the organisation, but weren't great in that it meant we didn't get a break all day. We had a corporate responsibility day organised for all of us which was a great way to get out of the office.

There wasn't much formal personal training and development, it was mostly a case of learning as I went along and I was well supported in that. I also learnt a lot from making it known to colleagues that I'd be interested in being invited to any relevant or interesting meetings which aided my development. There were opportunities to go to instructed sessions and online learning opportunities. There weren't many sessions while I was there, but I did attend a couple and they were interesting. I made an effort to get some online learning done on quieter days and this was fairly useful but Americanised in some cases so not always particularly relevant.

Very appealing, if I get offered a graduate position I will definitely take it. It is a brilliant culture, great work and the graduate programme is well organised and looks really interesting.

Yes, we aimed to go out for drinks on a weekly if not fortnightly basis. We also went for lunches out at the start and end of the internship. It was also nice that we saw each other weekly at the learning lunches as an opportunity to catch up. Some of the interns ate lunch together in the canteen but I normally ate with my team. There weren't many structured social sessions as part of the internship which was a bit of a shame as it might have got more engagement. Also a lot of the socials were drinks so it would have been nice to do other things together.

I chose not to live in London as the cost was too high for me, instead I commuted in which worked out a lot cheaper. Socialising was expensive compared to other parts of the country as it is London, but if you looked hard enough you could usually find something fun to do that was cheap, and most bars offered deals for certain times of the day so if you knew where to go it wasn't too bad.

I did not get to see what it was like to socialise in the area as much as some others. However the bars in the area that I went to all had nice atmospheres and I heard from others that it was a good environment for it, but you needed to go further afield for clubbing,

Yes they had a social club at the organisation which offered all sorts of activities such as sports, learning languages, trips and evening events. They put on a river cruise while I was there which I couldn't go to but sounded good fun, and if I was to stay longer I could have got involved in activities such as escape rooms and even a ski trip. They also offered heavily discounted theatre tickets and the like.