General Intern Review

My role in the EU Strategy and Engagement team involved monitoring EU authorities, attending online speaker events and European Parliament hearings, doing research for briefings for senior leadership speeches, assessing EU jurisdictions for their regulation (now Brexit has happened), tracking and logging international supervisory requests and going through European Commission consultations to see who the FCA's allies might be on asset management delegation.

I learnt a lot within my time at the FCA, and honed my already existing research skills and networking and presentation skills. It also felt great to build on specialised knowledge I had learnt at university and gain a greater (and more practical) context of the applications of the EU in finance. My teamwork with my Community Project group also improved my teamwork as we worked towards our final presentation in week 9.

I led my Community Project group, and otherwise was given a lot of independence within my internship and had opportunities to take on responsibility for certain aspects of projects within being managed.

I had weekly one-on-one's with my line manager, who whenever I had any questions would help guide me or point me in the right direction. I also had opportunities to talk to more senior leadership and whenever I reached out got answers if I was looking for support and guidance.

The company culture was great, (at least in the international department) I found that colleagues and the FCA provided the perfect balance between hard work and enjoyment; I did not often feel stressed during my internship, while still feeling challenged and like I had enough work. The company culture and atmosphere is very friendly, having the public sector feel.

I enjoyed my internship at the FCA a lot, even though it was all mostly online which I was disappointed about at first. I got to go into the office towards the end of the internship and this definitely increased my enjoyment of the internship.

Yes

Make sure you are applying if you enjoy the work the FCA does and are ready to learn! I was lucky to end up in the department I was most interested in, but the work the FCA does is so broad it is truly a learning experience.