Front Office Spring Week Review

The Barclays Front Office Spring Week was an amazing experience, giving me a unique opportunity to get a deeper insight into a range of areas within Investment Banking, Global Markets and PCB. It also led me to think about areas which I had not considered before. I've learnt so much within such a short space of time and therefore would highly recommend the opportunity.

Everyone that I spoke to personally was friendly and approachable, seeming to have an actual interest in me and what I had to say. It was also clear to see that a lot of organisation and effort went into the planning of the insight week and for this I am truly grateful.

We were free to ask many questions, and were advised during all the group activities that we did, including the case studies.

One of the key qualities that the program reinforces are confidence, which is important both when presenting to other people and also when networking with individuals. We also had an extremely useful session on presentation skills, which gave us the opportunity to present in smaller groups but also get useful feedback so that we can perform better in the future.

There was a variety of planned activities across the different business areas throughout the week.

I really enjoyed working alongside my fellow interns, seeing them more as friends, rather than rivals. Everyone is in the same position and broadly wants the same goals - to find out more about the industry and hopefully use newly acquired knowledge and skills to increase our chances of getting a job after university.

The whole week was a huge learning experience, and all the activities were relevant to our future careers.

The insight has helped my understanding, but there is still so much that I would like to learn and there is only so much that you can do within a single week.

Barclays really emphasises its values and this is seen across the board. The employees really do seem to believe in Barclays and its values, which contributes to its generally warm and open atmosphere.

If anything, each day made me more confused about what I wanted to do because there are so many roles and opportunities, but what I learnt has definitely put me in a better position to decide what I would like to do in my career. However, it was stressed that one should keep an open mind as you never know where your career might lead you.

I was reimbursed expenses

There were different opportunities to talk to employees during our group activities, but there was also a dedicated networking evening.

The networking evening was great because there were so many people there to talk to.

Yes, some employees talked about opportunities to take days out once a year to volunteer or fundraise for a cause that they supported.

Yes.