Data scientist summer intern Review

Overall, the summer internship experience has been fairly positive. Throughout my time, I have been exposed to real projects and help work on parts of these to help my team. I have been given genuine responsibility in the form of my own projects and given freedom to plan and design these to help my team. The aspect that wasn't enjoyable, was the fact that the organisation isn't as collaborative between teams. i.e. different departments are not talking and working with each other which can make finding opportunities and knowledge sharing difficult.

From the first day I felt welcomed into my team. The environment at the organisation is very warming and friendly. People are always doing what they can to help and making sure that you feel comfortable within your team and with the work you are doing. Again the only thing I would say is it's difficult to connect with people from other departments.

I was given a larger project which has taken up most of my internship. This meant that I was largely left to myself to work on the project. However, I had regular meetings with my line manager and team manager which gave me the support and guidance I needed at important intervals within my internship.

I often felt like I wasn't as busy as I was expecting and often found myself becoming less focused due to not having much work on. This may well be specific to me as I was given an exploratory task for my internship, but it would've been nice to have other streams of work going on at the same time.

I was given a large amount of responsibility throughout the internship. I was given enough guidance to have an idea of what I was doing, but aside from that the responsibility was on me for planning and designing my work and ensuring that it was relevant to task. To improve, I would say that the organisation could explore having interns running a meeting or a section of a meeting to really give them a chance to show their responsibility.

The internship was extremely useful in developing networking and communication skills. Outside of education it is difficult to practise these corporate and professional skills and hence this was a great opportunity to expand that. Have also developed judgement skills based on what information you judge to be relevant to your work and including that appropriately within your work.

The environment was extremely collaborative and open. Almost everyone was ready to help with any problems I had and always made me feel welcome - including people in more senior positions. The organisation also has opportunities for its employees (and interns) to get involved whether that be in terms of sport or just networks for similarly-minded people.

The internship programme itself is well thought out - having interns in many different divisions across the business. In terms of the intern events however, I felt there was a lack of communication between the talent team and the interns as to when events were and what was required. Personally, I felt my team had no real plan set in place but was willing to give me work as it came up - which was nice to help on more specific work but also felt as if my main goals were lacking structure

In terms of formal trading and accreditation there were no mentions of this. Only being a 10 week internship this was expected. In terms of softer training such as advice and guidance on networking - there were a few sessions designed to expand those more specific skills. Aside from the corporate induction training (which was mainly aimed at getting accustomed to the organisation) there was not much in the way of personal training.

For the public sector, the organisation offers an extremely competitive wage and benefits package. The promotional advancements are also quite varied and attractive however the wages for these do not grow as rapidly as within some other financial services businesses. The organisation also has programmes in place for more senior members which make the opportunities more attractive but these seem to be for those further down the line. Many interns were offered places so it is definitely quite likely to be offered a place if you do well on the internship.

The fellow interns were all very friendly and constantly had events going on throughout the internship. For example, a good group of interns joined sports societies such as badminton which was a very nice environment to be in. Outside of work, the interns were all very willing to meet up and do activities which really made the internship enjoyable.

Having the main office situated in London meant that many of the socialising options were pricey. However, with the internship being well-paid it meant that many of the social activities were affordable to the majority of interns. In terms of accommodation - London prices are always going to be expensive specifically housing costs. I believe this shouldn't stop people based on monetary reasons since - again - the internship's wage reflects these facts.

The nightlife was good and there are various nearby options for people to socialise and go on nights out. Shoreditch is close by and provides really good options for this. Due to the transport links in London it also meant that people could travel further afield to take advantage of what

There were a few opportunities for such activities such as badminton but apart from that I knew of very few other opportunities to do sports or just general socialising opportunities. Within my team however, there were often events between members of our department or team (separate from the organisation) to do something different with colleagues.