Intern Review

I had my own meaningful project to work on over the course of the ten weeks whilst having plenty of opportunities to engage with other work my team was doing. The on-boarding process was very smooth and for 90% of the time I felt like a valued team member rather than an intern.

The project I delivered was used by my colleagues to enhance their projects as well as being of use to the wider department.

I had several layers of support. I had a buddy who helped me find my feet, a mentor who supported me through my project and the internship as a whole, a manager who supported me at a more strategic level and of course the internship administrators in HR were always on hand to help.

I had peaks and troughs like all of my colleagues but broadly I was kept busy every day. Even if I did have spare time it was very easy to fill it by meeting with people from around the organisation to discuss the FCA.

This is where internships can be a bit hit and miss, this one was great. I felt like the project that I owned for the ten weeks was of real value and therefore I felt it was quite important to get it right. I spoke about it at the sub-divisional debrief (roughly 60 people) as well as presenting it to my team. Naturally, being at the bottom of the pecking order, I was given some data-mining tasks and had to write up Notes for Record after meetings, but that's part of life.

The skills I gained at the FCA were different to the skills I use in my academic studies, but I can see them being very useful in my working life. Degree studies tend to involve going into detail in your essays and using complex and nuanced arguments. During my internship I found that it was more effective to present your arguments in a shorter, snappier manner. This difference is probably one that most people are faced with when they go from uni into work. Another key difference is that in an office stakeholder management is key. Getting people to believe in the project you're doing and to give it the attention it deserves is not something that people are often required to do at uni but I gained invaluable experience of this during my internship.

I got the sense that my team was middle of the road when it came to sociability. There were a few team lunches and a bit of office banter but nothing out of the ordinary. As a cohort the interns were pretty sociable so all in all not too bad.

We had two days of inductions (one general and one intern-specific), my managers and mentors knew I was coming and everything was set up very quickly in terms of laptop, desk, e-mail etc. We had weekly learning lunches with people from around the organisation. I set objectives in my first two weeks and then had formal interim and final reviews to help me meet those objectives. Seamless.

I was asked to identify areas I wanted to develop in my initial objective setting and then there was a good focus on the part of my mentor, and fellow team members, to make sure I was getting the development I needed. The interim review was useful for identifying where I had already developed and what I needed to focus on in the back end of the internship.

We find out if we have a graduate role 2 weeks after completing the internship (no extra interviews or application stage) and it looks like a very appealing place to work.

We went for a curry each thursday and there were a few parties organised ourselves. There were 11 of us so it wasn't a massive group which meant we got to know each other fairly well.

We were based in London, and we were in Canary Wharf so it wasn't fantastic. I personally live in London anyway so it wasn't too bad and there are enough cheap places to make regular socialising feasible. Lunch outside of the canteen was an average of £6 I would say.

Again it was Canary Wharf so there were plenty of places for Thursday drinks but nowhere fantastically cheap apart from Wetherspoons.

There were regular advertisements for sports clubs, I probably should having taken more advantage of those. There was an FCA-only gym which has regular classes during lunch and after work. The short answer is yes.