Finance Summer Intern Review

I really enjoyed my internship experience, it was a great way to have an insight to the company. Having not had alot of banking work experience before it was a completely new company and industry and learnt a great deal. I found it quite hard work but is a worthwhile experience and very rewarding.

I found it very easy to speak to colleagues; I think as the internship programme is very well respected within the firm that everyone is able to spend some time with you and offer their advice. Compared to other work experience I have done before all colleagues no matter whether they were a graduate or an Executive Director always had a spare moment for you to support you.

We were all assigned a manager, a buddy and a senior advisor during our internship. All of these were there for you and were easy to contact if there were ever a problem no matter how big or small it was. My manager was very good at letting me know where I stood and if I had a problem I knew I could easily speak to him.

In the first couple of weeks I felt like I could have had some more work to do; however as I learnt more and more I got further responsibility and was trusted to do different tasks. I have had a few long term projects to get on with so this has kept me very busy; however have not had as many short term deliverable tasks to do which sometimes can help motivate you to do other long term tasks.

I was given alot of responsibility in sending out a daily email to 170 internal colleagues which was a very important task to my team. My team and work was quite technical so didn't do as much of this work as I would have wanted to; however I think this is a thing of experience which would inevitably come if I was working there full time.

I learnt a great deal about the firm and the whole banking industry. I think I learnt alot more professional skills rather than skills that will help me in my degree studies, however have learnt to motivate myself when given a long term project which is a skill for life. I think that the development of professional skills is very important and I think this will stand me in good stead for the future of when I do start working.

Really nice working environment, the people were very friendly always asking how I was getting on. Was a social atmosphere and my floor even went to play football on Thursday lunchtimes which was a good activity and way to meet people. Worked quite long hours but this is a normality for banking industry.

The internship was really well organised in that there was weekly intern events either meeting our buddies, senior advisors or having talks from senior members of the company. There was a good induction day full of talks and learning about the company and its culture; however I felt like we could have had some more specific training to our section.

We had a day of induction talks which were very helpful in learning about the firm. I felt as if we could have had some more specific training towards our section; in that I spent the first couple of weeks not knowing what everything was and what I was doing. There were numerous online training courses I could have completed if I had the time!

There is the opportunity of getting on the graduate programme from the internship. We learn on our last day whether we are offered the graduate job; this is definately an opportunity I would take up if I was offered it. The career progression in the company is very promising as there are so many opportunities to improve and develop.

As there were so many interns working (450 in total) is was quite hard to get to know everyone; however I made good friends with the other interns in my section of which there were about 20 and we organised some social events for all of us whether this being going to lunch or after drinks works.

I was lucky enough to live at home while I was working at my internship so had a small cost of living; however London prices to stay and go out are very expensive. I found that I spent alot of money during my programme as there is always an opportunity to do something after you finish work and you want to do something at the weekends to make the most of them.

London is a very lively place and there are many opportunities to go out wherever. I was working in Canary Wharf and there are plenty of bars and places to go after work. There are more places if you go in nearer the city which is not too far away is only about 3 stops on the tube!

As I have mentioned before I managed to get in on the Thursday lunchtime football which was a great activity and a great way to meet some other people on my floor which I would have never really spoken to otherwise. There are plenty of other sports teams and social clubs to get involved in if that suits you.