Technology Intern Review

My placement has been very different than to what was planned given the current circumstances so it was entirely virtual. The move to a virtual internship instead of completely cancelling it is a decision I really appreciate from Barclays and think they excelled in. There was a lot of scheduled calls and activities to do most days and the communication from the recruitment team was amazing. Obviously it wasn't as interesting, fun or useful as it would have been if in person but it was still a good attempt.

Due to the fact that we were constantly working from our desks the only means of communication with my team (and Line Manager especially) was email or Skype and these can easily be ignored and sidelined, of which occurred to me a lot. I never felt as though I had that personal connection with my team as they didn't have much use for me and not much time but I understood that this was just the case when working from home and think it would have been a lot better in person as i could have actively been part of the team.

To some extent I was given a lot of support, that being through a colleague who regularly called me to talk about technical concepts and what I need to do to improve my learning. I few interesting calls were occasionally scheduled for me but in general besides the weekly 'check up' email/call there wasn't much help, I had to fend for myself a little bit towards the end. However at the beginning there was TONNES of technical issues of which my team members didn't really help with and it was mainly from the recruitment team where I recieved very good support

On some days I would have loads of calls scheduled with multiple people and on others I'd have none, it all just depends on how it fell. I was also not given many 'deadlines' and work with all of it being self learning so if i wanted to I could really get away with not doing much work but I made the most out of my experience and aimed to fill my time as much as I could with the resources available, I was only realy '9-5' busy because I made myself busy.

Not much really, I had access to some sensitive data/code and applications of which I could use but as discussed my work was self learning so I was just responsible for that myself. I wasn't responsible for anything of the companies as such but a lot of the internship was more about how you made the most out of it and did things for yourself so I suppose you were given that independence and responsibility to do what is best for you, this would have been the case virtual or not but definitely more so when working from home.

The skills I mainly developed was virtual communication and networking which is obviously a new skill for everyone. It was difficult to communicate and get to know people across an a screen so the skills were trying to get your personality across and this is definitely a skill I can take into the rest of my working life which will be most likely virtual. Another skill I developed was my coding skills, especially with API's and Spring Boot, and such things will be very useful for me being a Computer Scientist.

I wasn't in an office unfortunately so can't comment.

Given the harsh circumstances we are in I believe that the internship was fairly well set up given the amount of change which was required. There were tools, facilities, calls, activities and more set up, all of which were fairly engaging and stuff I didn't think would be possible in the given time frame. However there were still a fair few problems throughout the internship such as access to services and software such as the VDI's and things. there was too much required to be set up and fixed before joining which was very hard to do by yourself at your desk. This was somewhat expected with working from home however.

They had occasional training sessions but LOTS of online resources which if you used were very interesting and useful.

Extremely appealing. Everyone had lots of good advice about career choices and the future of which I will take away with me but they also somewhat sold the company to me. It made me realize how big the company is and how many doors it opens by just being within it as so many people had stories of jumping around through so many roles and for someone who doesn't know the exact job they want right now it sounds perfect and a great starting point

I had friendships with a few people yes but due to the circumstances it was a lot harder to meet people and make friends. There was the occasional networking event scheduled of which many people attended but a lot of people could easily hide behind their muted mic and so you didn't get much chance to engage with a lot of people, though the people who did show their face and talk a lot stood out and from their you could pursue 'friendships' if you wanted. We also had a good group chat from a bunch of people who met up last year so they were a good group of contacts.

Cheap as I am currently living in Fallowfield, Manchester, which is a cheap student area to live in and the social life is normally great (not during the pandemic however)

dead. because there wasn't any.

There were was one or two but they didn't sound very appealing due to the fact it was all virtual, most thinsg were just kept work based to get everyone away from their desks