Commercial Banking Intern Review

The work I do is valued and feel like I have felt motivated to work due to being given my own responsibilities. The office is Edinburgh is separate from University life down in Exeter but has been great to spend 10 weeks in a completely different location. I would recommend this internship to anyone.

I am part of the Commercial Banking team in the St Andrew's Square Office. I felt included and welcomed from the very start. Being given my own projects to work on independently has meant that I have been able to work at my own pace (this pace is faster than what they expected) and because of this I feel that the work load is challenging but manageable.

The feedback I have been given has been informal and based around the work I do rather than every week. The feedback meetings I have are less common but longer in duration. However, I have received good guidance from a range of managers. Whilst my line manager was on holiday for a week, I worked with another manager on his portfolio.

My personal objectives given to me at the beginning of the programme provided me with an insight to what I will be doing on a daily basis. I have always have work to be done by the end of the week. If you exceed expectations and work faster than expected don't be surprised if you are given new tasks at once.

I would described my responsibilities as: independent, important and respected. I have been given work which would have been given work which is fundamental to team processes. Some of the work is more long term work which would normally be done over an extended period of time. The work I have been set has be planned in advance and not plucked out of thin air.

During this internship I have developed my business knowledge, including the creation of loans, understanding of annual accounts and how to manage on-going relationships with real customers. Studying my masters next year will allow me to put some of this knowledge into practice. This ten weeks has given me real business understanding.

The work ethic of people in the office is balanced, people know when to have a laugh and when to work hard. I feel like this atmosphere encourages you to work hard but makes to remember to enjoy what you are doing. There are also a lot of young people in my office which helps.

It has got good structure with it and it is clear that the timings have been though through. The induction is plenty long enough that you know a lot of people by the end of it. Only thing I would say about the induction including all offices means that - you most likely wont see a large portion of the people again.

I feel that personal development is self-driven. If you want to go out and attend more events, talks and activity days (hackathon's etc.) you are free to do so. However, if you enjoy your day to day work you may choose to focus on that. The choice at the end of the day is yours.

The grad scheme does appeal to me and I currently intend on accepting it. The flexibility to move to any office (London, Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh etc.) gives you flexibility to where you want to work. However, if you want to work internationally there are less opportunities. RBS definitely looks after its employee's that's for sure.

There are 45 RBS interns in Edinburgh and 140 nationally (across all departments). The social scene is good - we have a whatsapp chat with everyone which we created at the induction. This has made sure that there are always things going on in the evenings and at the weekend.

I lived in a friends uni flat which worked quite well. However, some people found looking for accommodation more difficult. Definitely look on spare room websites/ uni halls and anyone you know in the area. Socialising isn't too expensive - its depends on where you go you can pre at home/ go to a spoons or go to a nice bar, its up to you.

Nightlife is good - its a bigger city than where I went to uni so for me there has been lots to do. I would recommend Edinburgh city to any of my friends. Especially during Fringe Festival there is always something on pop-up bars to comedy shows. A very cool city.

There is a football club on every week. And the charity challenges we have to do means you have some stuff to do with work colleagues. However, I would say that we organise the majority of the things we do outside of work by ourselves. I think the sun has helped the park be a common meeting place.