Strategy Analyst Summer Intern Review

The Intern Programme team put in a lot of effort into helping us get settled in virtually, which was very much appreciated during the coronavirus pandemic. It also ran for the full duration it would have run, had it not been virtual. I really enjoyed the culture as well; everyone was incredibly welcoming and friendly. They made me feel a part of the team immediately and made sure to make an effort to connect me with people across various teams to ensure I could complete my project well.

The entire intern group was very friendly and inclusive, we arranged a lot of Zoom sessions and tried to help each other out whenever we could. We were also allocated a mentor and a buddy, to go to if ever we were unsure about anything or needed help with our projects. We were also directed to talk to other recent graduates in the business through various social activities and when we needed help with something outside of our department.

I had Zoom meetings/catch ups with my mentor almost everyday at the start of the internship, this was really helpful in guiding my intern project, as well as teaching me a lot of the skills required in the actual role. It also gave me a bit of an idea of what to expect if I were to go on the grad scheme later on, as rotations between teams are a part of that too and involve steep learning curves.

We were set clear expectations at the start of the internship to not be working much overtime throughout the internship. While at the start there was a bit of waiting for access to certain systems, we were able to learn a bit more about our teams and context in this time. We also got progressively busier towards the end of the internship, as we needed to finalise our presentations. Different interns did have varying degrees of work though.

I was given quite a lot of ownership for my intern project with my manager and mentor there to guide me rather than run the project and tell me what to do for it.

I feel that while the actual technical skills may not be useful in the rest of my degree (as my degree is a lot more theoretical), they could definitely be useful in my future career. I also think the type of thinking they encouraged and helped me develop will come in useful in both my degree and future career. I feel that the application of these skills is also very wide and does not restrict me to any specific career path.

I think the energy was really good, with the intern class being always willing to help each other and have a casual chat after work. Other people in the business were also happy to have coffee chats and help us out whenever we had any questions. They also helped us with our technical training at times, which was really useful to have in a more casual question and answer session. We also had another buddy assigned for technical issues.

We had a lot of intern activities at the start and end of the internship, in order to onboard us and introduce us to the company. The projects were also really well thought out and planned. They gave us enough time to get used to the system and style of work, while allowing us to contribute to some real work. It had enough scope and opportunity for us to make it into as big or small a project as we felt we would be capable of during the 10 weeks.

There were a lot of training sessions at the start of the programme, which included not just the technical and company specific information, but also a lot of information around working from home and the implications this has on us personally. This was really useful as it is a unique situation and I felt they thoroughly prepared us for it, considering we also did not have much prior real life work experiences to begin with.

We attended a talk by the CEO, who explained how she had essentially worked her way up from a grad to CEO in the 20 or so years she had worked here. It was also really inspiring to see the people in my team get promoted throughout the internship. Furthermore, considering that the US company is a lot larger, it does mean that there are further potential opportunities on that side of things as well.

Absolutely. While we tended to arrange more Zoom meet-ups within our intern divisions (i.e. Strategy and Tech), we also had some overall catch-ups and events. We also took part in work from home games, where we were assigned teams and had to partake in various tasks. We also arranged to play online games at the end of the day some days. This helped us get to know each other better and have some social time regardless of the virtual environment.

N/A as it was held virtually.

N/A as it was held virtually.

Feel there would be more if we were not virtual for the whole internship.