Summer Intern Review

The work was rewarding in that I learned about various economic and financial concepts outside of an academic sphere. I was glad I was not simply getting coffee for people and was actually given some responsibility and a platform to show my skills. The work was not easy but it was rewarding to be treated like an employee and trusted to do some real work.

I feel that the majority of my colleagues treated me very nicely and my team as a whole was quite outgoing. I think this added to the experience as I felt I made some good connections over my 3 months. However it was not perfect, some were more different than others, and there was not much department cross-over in terms of friendliness.

I felt the support was there if/when I needed it, however they did assign a lot of individual and independent work which, at first, was a bit daunting. I enjoyed being somewhat left to my own devices - and I guess management style depends on what type of person is being managed. If I had required a lot of support and supervision I'm sure it would have been available.

The first week was quite slow as I tried to learn the ropes and the various acroynms and terms that would come to consume my work-life! However after assignment were set, expectations anchored and I began to learn the role, it got quite busy at times. Of course there were the occasional slow friday afternoon, but most of the time I had a few projects or assignments on the go that needed attention.

This was my first internship so I really did not know what to expect. We have all heard of the young, fresh-faced intern running out to collect 5 latte's for their team - gladly that was not the case. I was surprised by the responsibility given to me, and I respected that they had that level of trust in a relatively inexperienced Summer Intern. Over the 3 months I was given a variety of projects, both in teams and alone, as well as long-term strategic jobs through to short-term, time sensitive work. The work also was not mundane, I felt I contributed to the firm in a real way, and not just given work to keep me busy.

In terms of knowledge learnt during my internship I would say that my financial and banking knowledge improved greatly. The internship was a truly immersive experience, albiet hard-work. There is only so much you can learn from a book on financial and banking systems - having spent three months actually working in a large bank, the hands-on knowledge gained is invaluable. It is also grounded in reality, you can learn a concept in a book, but seeing it happen all around you, and it effecting your firms bottom line in a real, tangible way was an eye-opening experience.

The atmosphere where I was working was quite good. The people were very friendly and it was fairly relaxed due to the holiday period. The only time it was dull was when a lot of people were on holiday - which is to expected during a summer internship. The dullness was simply due to the low amount of people in the office. Overall I would say the atmosphere was good.

I would rate the intership placement set up as fair. Not amazing, not terrible. There were some conference calls that were set up with higher up execs that simply did not happen with no explanation to boot. There was also a bit of mismangement in terms of the buddy system - but that might have been an individual problem. The set-up matched my expectations, but I was not blown away.

I feel there was a good amount of training and personal development given to us. We were advised to complete the mandatory training as well as several voluntary trainings throughout the internship. We also had a CV and Interview Prep day which was actually more helpful than I had anticipated. You get out as much as you put in I suppose.

How appealing or how likely? The job itself seems pretty appealing. The rewards and facilities are good, it was in a nice area - it would take a lot to complain, and there were much worse places on offer. How likely? I'm not the one to ask, but my gut feeling is they concentrated much more on the Summer Analysts as opposed to the Interns.

The interns were split into two groups. One group of roughly 20 were in one building. The other group of roughly 6 were spread across 4 floors in a different building. We organised a few nights out but I personally didn't socialise too much with the entire group. I made a few good connections that I will keep on after the internship. Again, you get what you put in.

The area we were located was quite expensive as it's located in the heart of the financial services center. It is too be expected that the amenities will be catered towards young, employed professionals as opposed to Uni students. That being said there were many places with student deals available if you looked.

As above, the area is the financial services centre. It is notorious for being empty post-6pm and on the weekends. It is not somewhere one would go for a few drinks - and I can't say that I even tried. Nightlife would require a 15 minute walk.

Because it was the summer I assume there were more after-work activities than in winter. There was a Summer BBQ, golf outings, football games, banking and financial talks, and a few other events. There were also charity and volunteerism schemes available to us.