Bank of England Intern Review

Overall the experience was very enjoyable. The team that I was working on was very welcoming. The internship started with a two week bootcamp on programming, learning R from Datacamp. Then I had 6 weeks to complete an individual project. During this time I had good guidance from my manager. There was good work-life balance. I never had to do any extra work beyond standard working hours.

My colleagues were very friendly. We had team dinners every day, so I felt like I was part of the team. We often did other activities together so I felt very integrated into the team. I also attended team meetings, so I was not treated any differently from another member on the team, despite only being an intern.

I had daily guidance by my manager and we would often talk about my project in detail. I could ask for help at any time to discuss anything relating to my project. If I was struggling I could also get help from anyone from the team. Overall they were very supportive.

I was often left alone to work on my project. As my project was 6 weeks long, I did not have to work overly hard on any particular day. Nevertheless, it was clear what work I had to do every day and I was busy working on my project at all times, so I never felt bored.

I was given an individual project that had significant meaning to the greater picture. My work was particularly important as it could potentially affect policy in the future. Other members of my team also found my work useful. Therefore I had a lot of responsibility to make sure my project was good.

I found the programming aspect very useful for my studies. Being able to learn R from scratch and apply it to a data set was very valuable for me. I learnt about how to clean and analyse large data sets. This will definitely be useful for me in the future.

Everyone in my team was very friendly. It was very chatty. We went for team dinners every day. Overall it was very welcoming, I felt like I was part of the team. Despite it being chatty, everyone knows what work they have to do. We had team activities outside of work too.

It felt very organised. First day was an induction where they set up IT and give presentation talks. Then the next two weeks I was on a R bootcamp, learning from Datacamp. Then I was introduced to the project I would be working on. This took 6 weeks. In the final week I gave a presentation to the team and handed over my work to my colleagues.

The main personal training I got was learning R from Datacamp. Usually this would cost money but I was able ot use the Bank's access to Datacamp. I was also free to attend any talk/seminar at the bank. I attended many interesting talks about topics I was interested in relating to economics.

Good, the worklife balance is very good. The atmosphere is also very friendly. You are able to work on interesting projects.

Yes, the interns regularly had lunch together and went to talks together. We also had outside of work activities, pub drinks etc.

Central London is very expensive.

I didn't care about Nightlife.

Yes, the Bank organised some activities outside of work. Everything was very accessible.