Summer Associate Review

I enjoyed it. It was challenging at times (managing workload and expectations), but the work was interesting and colleagues friendly.

Highly valued, my colleagues were genuinely interested in my work, and willingly discussed their own work.

My line manager was very generous with his time and I was able to meet several other Directors/MDs through the internship programme.

Working hours: 9-6:30. Mainly busy with coding and data analysis and self-directed work on my project.

I was given responsibility for my project but enough support to be able to work effectively on it.

Specific skills (new programming language and data analysis) will be transferable as will the increased knowledge of the banking industry and how technical projects are carried out in a business setting.

The atmosphere was fairly relaxed, with good conversation between colleagues but enough of a focus to get work done.

The internship was well organised on a team level, with good communication between my line-manager and I. However, there seemed to be some confusion in HR in the run up to the internship regarding proof of identity documents etc.

In terms of strucutred training, Barclays organised a two day training program for all associate and analyst interns, and there was a good (but quite short) programme of quantitative analysis seminars delivered internally. Additionally (and more importantly), colleagues in my team were very generous with their time in helping me to learn the skills I needed to successfully undertake my project.

Appealing - the working environment in quantitaive analytics is very good, the work interesting/challenging.

Yes, my immediate team were very friendly and we got to know each other fairly quickly. There were social events at the weekends (however I was out of London for these).

Rents around Canary Wharf are generally high, but I got a good deal by getting a Mon-Fri let (this may not be possible for interns working in departments with less predictable hours). Eating out is quite expensive but there are some very reasonable places in Greenwich near Cutty Sark DLR station (6 stops on the DLR from Canary Wharf). Food can be quite expensive (the main supermarket in Canary Wharf is a Waitrose, with lots of Tesco Expresses), but there's an ASDA on the Isle of Dogs (the residential area south of Canary Wharf) which is a bit more reasonable.

Didn't experience much of this myself, but it looked good (there seem to be a lot of pubs and bars around Canary Wharf!). Not that much to do in the evenings that doesn't involve drinking alcohol (Pret in Canary Wharf's open until 11pm and is nice and quiet).

Yes, there were lots of company sports clubs which were open to interns (unfortunately I didn't get round to going to any). There was also a citizenship programme to help a local charity which gave a good opportunity to get to know other interns in other parts of the business socially.