Summer Associate Review

The work is very interesting and topical and the people are very nice and fun to work with.

My team allowed me to contribute positively to both internal and external meetings and gave me sole responsibility for the project that I was working on.

The balance between responsibility and support is one of the FSA's best assets. Help is always there when you need it and I always felt comfortable asking for it. However, I was also trusted to work independently for sustained periods of time when I wasn't in need of guidance.

My levels of work varied quite a bit however my manager was good at ensuring that if I didn't have enough work or if I had too much work, that it was rebalanced.

I was responsible for my completing my project and feeding back my work to the team. I also got involved in other projects which included external meetings with CRO, CFOs etc although this was mostly minute writing.

The skills development aspect of the internship is good with an objectives plan to focus on both technical and soft skills. These will be useful in careers in a variety of industries.

The atmosphere in the office is a good balance between formal and relaxed. Everybody I met was friendly and approachable and willing to answer any questions and discuss things with me.

The internship is well rather well organised. The period of the internship is fixed, you are told about your team/department/manager in advance and are assigned a graduate buddy who you are introduced to before the start date as well.

The internship begins with a 2 day development workshop and in the middle week, there is another half-day workshop. I also attended a full-day off-site training course as it was directly relevant to my project. In addition to this, I signed up for several hour-long presentations about the main issues in regulation, the move to the PRA and other topics, you have to look for these yourself but are easy to find and advertised fairly often.

The final appraisal is used to determine whether or not a graduate offer is extended to you, this should be decided in September. Typically, the majority of interns receive an offer. As the organisation splits this year, if I were to receive an offer it would be for the FCA.

Most interns would meet up for lunch either in the canteen or outside if the weather was nice. We went out for after-work drinks fairly often, the first and last of which were organised and funded by HR. We also went out on a few friday nights and entered 4 teams into the FSA bowling tournament.

Canary Wharf is expensive to eat and drink and London is obviously an expensive place to live. I already had a place to live as I study in London but it did pose some problems for other interns.

The pubs/bars are pretty good and it is very easy to get in Central London for nights out etc.

The Sports and Social Club held a few events and the interns got involved in the bowling tournament. Since its a short period of time its hard to get involved with the sports and other things such as language courses.