Spring intern Review

I enjoyed this placement a lot. It offered my a fantastic insight into how a big company like Barclays operate, and how technology fits into it. My only downside was that I didn’t get the opportunity to shadow a programmer, or find out more about them at Barclays, as this is what I’m looking to head into.

I felt very welcome here at Barclays. In the Radbroke campus, everyone has been very welcoming, and very friendly. This wasn’t what I expected, as I was expecting professionals to be annoyed and angry at the fact that they almost have to babysit some uni students. However, this wasn’t the case.

The supports has been great at Barclays Radbroke campus. There’s has been many opportunity to liaise with senior management and graduates alike. The only downside is again that I didn’t get the experience to talk to many programmers, as most the people we have spoken to are mainly project managers.

The program has given me a big insight into the industry, and how technology sits in a company like Barclays. However, I feel due to the lack of work with programmers, I haven’t learnt as much as maybe I could have. However, what I have learnt is very useful, and will look good on my cv.

The structure at the Barclays technology insight week has been brilliant. There hasn’t been a moment where we’ve felt we had little to do, and every day has been packed to the brim with talks and insights. The high number of professionals used has made the structure even better, as you’re learning from experts in their respected fields.

The atmosphere was very good during the insight week, although there were moments where a few of the speakers seemed to drag, or there was a field that I wasn’t too interested, however this was likely due to the fact that the rest of the week was so interesting to me.

The company has invested in me a great deal. When I signed up for the insights week, I was unaware of the fact that I had an interview at the end of the week. This in my opinion shows that the company is also interested in me, and this has been reflected in the work we’ve done this week.

The company had put a lot of work in showing me how Barclays works and runs. I have also spoke to lots of employees, all who have talked about how good it is to work here. However, again due to the fact that I haven’t spoke to many programmers, I’m still not exactly sure how the role is done at Barclays.

I learnt a lot about the culture of the company. The company truely follows its RISES scheme, showing respect, integrity, stewardship, excellence and service in everything they do and everyone they talk to. This can often be quite rare in companies, as they state their values, but don’t follow them. This isn’t the case at Barclays.

The content of the week has been very useful at finding out stuff I don’t want to do. I have spoke a lot to project managers and programme managers, and have decided I do not want to do these roles at this stage. Due to not speaking to many programmers, I’m not sure what programming role I’d like.

The company reimbursed my expenses, and offered accommodation and free food to us.

We have had many opportunities to network, just not enough developers in the end.

These were very well set up, and had a lot of staff attending

The facilities at Radbroke offer a lot for staff to do out of hours, like football, rugby etc

I would as I have gained some work experience, and have a chance to get a very useful intern