Summer Technology Analyst Review

The experience was fairly enjoyable, the most enjoyable aspects were getting to hear from industry professionals, getting to meet and work with new people, and getting to work on projects. Something which might have made it more enjoyable would be if there were more coding opportunities, but given the circumstances, and seeing that it had to be a virtual experience, which had to be accommodated for in a short period of time, this is completely understandable.

Because the experience was virtual it was difficult to form relationships with as many people around the firm as we might have done if it was an in person experience. However, I still felt valued as a part of the teams I worked in with other interns. The teams I worked in worked together as a close knit group, which made us all feel important and also form friendships with one another, which was nice.

The guidance and support was quite good. Virtually every person we interacted with in the firm was very friendly and helpful. We had managers with whom we checked in every few days who could answer any questions. We also had senior mentors who were at fairly high positions, who were also there to guide and answer questions. Lastly, we had a large number of talks from people such as mental health counsellors who provided guidance on general work life balance.

The experience was really good in helping developing my communication skills, and I learnt a lot about the banking sector, which was really nice, but I was a little disappointed with the amount of training we received in computer science skills. We had approximately 2 training days to learn ReactJS, and while the training was really good, I would have really appreciated getting more time to apply this knowledge. Perhaps this was simply because of how late the in person experience had to be adapted for the virtual version.

The experience was structured well. The training helped to settle in before we met others and started working together. Again, its difficult to criticize because of the circumstances, but the final project was a bit less structured than I would have preferred, though this may have been a deliberate choice to encourage creativity, we did not have a lot of time to be creative and explore different ideas, so it was a bit stressful difficult.

The general atmosphere during the experience was filled with people wanting to give everything their all. There was a lot of contribution and a lot of questions in every talk or training session we had. Everyone was eager and determined and this made the general atmosphere very interesting. The atmosphere gave the feeling that everyone here is here to learn and grow as much as they can, which made me feel motivated to do my best as well.

The firm invested in our personal training and development to a very high extent, since the majority of our virtual experience was filled with training in the financial services industry, soft skills training, division specific training, and talks from experienced people who spoke about their experiences, gave guidance, and answered a lot of questions. Considering the projects we worked on were not real projects and only for the sake of the internship, the entire experience was just a huge investment from the firms part.

The virtual experience helped us understand what it would be like to have a full time role with the company to a very high extent. As mentioned before, the entire experience was a massive investment in the interns on the firms part, so they were eager to show us what work there would look like. We had many talks from people in different divisions, who walked us through the work they did and what enjoyed about it. We also had many talks from people about diversity and inclusion, the work life balance, the clubs and societies (e.g. toastmasters) at db and more.

The virtual experience wasn't amazing to help understand company culture, but this was purely because it was virtual and the culture would have been experienced and understood best in person. Given the circumstances, the company did the best they could do, and there was a unique culture that came from meeting everyone online, which it seems will stay for a while until covid dies down, so the culture we experienced was a different one to the one there might be in the future.

The experience was not massively valuable in helping to decide my future career path, and this is because we were not able to do work in different parts of the division. It did help to narrow down between some divisions that seemed interesting and others that seemed like they weren't for me. But I'm not disappointed by this outcome since given the circumstances, it would be really difficult to provide that kind of opportunity virtually.

We were paid generously, and paid for expenses for living arrangements, etc.

Yes plenty of opportunities for networking were arranged, though sometimes, the networking was set up in an awkward and rushed way, which was difficult.

Again, some of the networking opportunities felt a bit awkward and rushed by the nature of them. I think we would have appreciated more social events like online games - we did have one at the very end - but weekly sessions would have been good to make friends and network and also to destress.

Yes, as mentioned before we did have talks from people about the clubs and societies (e.g. toastmasters) at db and more, and there were online resources to find out more about the different activities.

Yes, it was a fairly insightful experience, and I gained a lot of soft skills and knowledge of the financial services industry which I was interested in. Given the circumstances, the virtual experience was organized quite well, and I enjoyed learning and working with other interns a lot.