Cyber and Information Resilience Intern Review

Overall I really enjoyed my internship especially considering the circumstances, the work in my business unit was challenging and engaging and I felt that I was given responsibility within my team. The Kaplan training was generally well delivered although I felt that some of the sessions could of been condensed into a slightly shorter format. I enjoyed working with my community project team and found the brief interesting but open ended enough that we were able to come up with some creative ideas.

I feel that I was assigned interesting work that added value to the company which made me feel valued. I was a part of all the team meetings and events etc, which made me feel like part of the team. This was a strong point of the internship as I felt that I was able to forge working relationships with my colleagues despite not meeting them in person. The same applied to the community project where I had a good working relationship with my team members.

I spoke to my line manager and colleagues that I worked with on a weekly basis at least to discuss how I was getting on with work and the internship in general. I also had morning brief meetings with my work team where I could raise any questions that I had. My grad buddy did a really good job at answering any questions that I had and connecting my to other areas of the business.

I was happy with the level of work that I was given. The work for my business area challenged me and kept me busy. I never found myself in a position where I was waiting to receive work with nothing to do which was a strong point. Sometimes I found it difficult to balance my business unit work with my work for the community project but my team were very accommodating in this regard by reducing my workload when I was busy with the project and increasing it when I wasn't.

I took on considerably more responsibility than I expected which was the biggest plus for me of the internship. I managed one solo main project throughout the internship which comprised the bulk of my working time. This project should add value to the company, as well as this I did several side projects working alongside and assisting other members of my team with real and important work. I felt that we were given a good level of independence and responsibility in our planning of the community project as well.

I think that the skills I learn't on the internship will be benefit me a lot in my working life. In particular learning how to manage time and personal resilience stuck out to me as value pieces of knowledge from my work and the training we were given. I can also take some of the cyber security knowledge I have developed back into the final year of my degree. I think given that and the general knowledge that comes with working in a team and a corporate environment will benefit me in my career

Despite not working in the office, the atmosphere over video calls with my team and the wider organisation was friendly.

Overall the internship was well set up especially when considering the circumstances. It was useful to have a grad buddy that I could go to with any questions that I had. The team had work planned for me before I arrived which ensured that I always had something to do. The community project was well organised and supported by our graduate mentor. The only organisation issues I had was the occasional issue with the IT equipment.

We were given training on general business skills which supplemented the work that we were given by our divisions and community project. The training was of a good quality and well delivered by a external provider. The work I was assigned by my team was relevant to my career goals and helped me learn more about cyber security which is my area of interest. At the beginning of the internship I set goals with my line manager on my work and personal goals for the internship which helped me focus my efforts.

I enjoyed my time working within the FCA and it is somewhere I would be interested in working in the future. The internship programme did a good job in explaining the graduate programme with Q&A's with current graduates and explanations of how the grad scheme is run. The programme also made the process for going from the internship to the grad scheme clear.

Working from home meant that there wasn't much of a traditional social scene between interns, however there were some virtual events organised amongst the interns.

Worked from home

Worked from home

Worked from home