Summer Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my internship as the people that I worked with were lovely and the department that I worked in was very interesting! I didn’t know what to expect going into this internship as it’s a new scheme and I didn’t have any reviews to go on, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I didn’t feel like ‘just an intern’. I felt as if I was a valued member of the team as they were genuinely interested in the work that I was doing and were more than happy to help in terms of helping me achieve my goal and answering any questions I had. They were also quite keen in getting me involved in the work that they were doing

My line manager from the get-go was fantastic. She was in incredibility supportive and was very approachable. Even when she was pretty busy with work, I always felt that I could ask her any questions and she would take the time to listen to me and try and help if she could or find somebody who could! I had regular 1:1’s with her where I could discuss the status of project and any breakthroughs or hindrances I found I had as well as just generally having a chat!

During the first and last week’s I didn’t have a particularly busy workload, which is to be expected, however I was able to fit in quite a lot of work shadowing within those 2 weeks. Busyness varied on a day to day basis to the nature of the work.

The amount of responsibility I was given was excellent. I really felt as if the work that I was doing was worthwhile and it’d have a positive impact on the team!

As part of the scheme I was on, we had to complete a six sigma yellow belt project that we could get accreditation for. The investigative skills and the methodology learnt from the project are definitely applicable to everyday life. I also think that the discipline that you learn from a working environment such as time management will be incredibly useful at uni!

Really nice, everyone was really friendly. At times the office could pretty quiet as everyone would be getting on with work, but then other times we’d just all have these long chats about the most random of things!

There was a 1 day induction and a 2 day training course which was really useful. We were given a booklet with examples of the sort things we would be expected to do – however this was quite broad and didn’t really apply to what I was doing. I do feel it probably would have been useful to have maybe a catch-up call with someone from HR just to check in how we were doing and to see if we had any concerns or issues.

The training that we were given at the induction was really helpful; I wouldn't have been able to do my project without it! There is some mandatory learning that you have to complete depending on which part of the bank you are placed in. The bank also offer quite a lot in terms of e-learning and so gives you the opportunity to read up on things that may interest you.

I’ve had the chance to speak to a few of the graduates who seem to have really enjoyed their time so far at the bank and the grad scheme seems really good! I definitely wouldn’t turn down an offer should the opportunity arise.

There were a few other interns in my city; we didn’t really get a chance to meet up. I do think it’s quite difficult especially when you’re all based quite far away from each other!

Living at home so I was living cost free and managed to save quite a lot of my salary! I had quite an early start though so didn’t manage to go out as much as I hoped, I definitely wouldn’t recommend having to get up for work at half 6 in the morning after a night out!

Nightlife was alright, nothing special. I'm a local so I knew all the places to go to and mainly went out with friends.

I had consistent working hours so I had plenty of time to get involved with things out of work. Good work/life balance.