Summer Intern Review

I learnt a lot during my internship - the work was challenging but interesting.

There is a real emphasis on valuing colleagues within my division. I felt that people were always there to help and this was furthered by the willingness of colleagues to go out for meals together etc.

I felt that everyone was willing to help and guide, but sometimes you had to have the initiative to ask for the guidance first. I preferred this stucture as it meant that you had room to follow up things in your own time, instead of sticking to a strict plan.

There were times when I was suitably busy, but also times when I didn't have much going on. Usually you get a gap when you're waiting for someone to deliver you something.

My line manager gave me tasks and for many tasks just left me to it. If I needed any help he would be happy to explain things.

I have learnt a lot in terms of software development and coding languages. Most of all, the team skills and initiative that I had to show in order to deliver will be invaluable for my degree and beyond.

Colleagues and other interns were very friendly and fun, although sometimes the office would be quite quiet. In general I thought the balance was just about right between being fun and being able to get on with work.

The structuring was very good - we had master classes every week in different business areas, which helped develop our knowledge of other divisions within Barclays. However, I did feel that some parts of the internship were not so visible - particularly information about graduate roles and next steps.

We had a course teaching us about I.T. methodologies and weekly masterclasses that gave us insight into other business areas, which was very useful.

Overall I enjoy my day to day work and this would be definitely somewhere I would consider working at.

Interns lunched together, we had regular meet ups and the masterclasses every week allowed us to all see each other properly. Plus the mid-intern event and other company events allowed us to socialise well. I think the only thing to improve on would be to add maybe a few more intern events, such as team building exercises.

Very expensive, especially travel.

I haven't had much of a chance to go out, but pubs around the area are quite nice.

I tried to volunteer within Barclays for their community events but most events were either outside the internship calender or were full day events, which isn't ideal.