Technology Intern Review

I have enjoyed most of my internship. The work have been assigned to was itself quite boring (especially at the beginning), luckily I had lots of recurring meetings that would make everything less monotonous. The company has also organised many networking events for us interns, like Induction day which took place in London, and a social responsibility day during which we volunteered working in a local community project, which I really enjoyed. Overall I would say the internship was very well-organised and I was just unlucky that my project was not very exciting.

My colleagues were all really kind to me. Those in my team would try to chat with me every day even though I was sitting in a different table and would always apologise if they ended up ignoring me due to excessive workload. They have also invited me to have lunch with them a couple of times and to all their team-related events.

My supervisor has been absent for three weeks at the beginning of my internship, but he delegated to another guy in my team who was very kind and helpful. My project mostly included working together with AD teams and talking to people other than my supervisor, who was merely there to check my progress.

For the first half of my internship I was not very busy. I would spend most of my time reading documentation and trying to figure out how stuff works. Even after I started writing code I would have to ask for access permissions or setup meetings with other teams in different locations and most of the time was spent waiting for someone to reply to my emails. Nearer the end of the internship, I started being assigned more tasks and working with many different teams/projects at the same time.

Initially I took over a project that was initiated by another intern last summer - after that I had to work to a similar project from scratch, with a different team who was based abroad. My work is quite important for this team as they are going to use my scripts in the future on an almost-daily basis.

I have developed many skills which do not strictly relate to my studies (i.e. communication skills, self-management...). As far as computing science is concerned, I got acquainted with a few tools and software development techniques, and got to know how application deployment works in a large company with offices across the globe. I have not done much programming over the course of my internship but I got the chance to practice scripting in both Unix and Windows environments, and I have also found out that I rather enjoy it.

A lot more relaxed than I thought it would be. Everyone in the office seemed to be really sociable and laid-back.

Very well. We had two recruiters who were always approachable and helpful. They company organised many events, both open to everyone and interns-only. At the beginning of the internship I have been assigned a 'buddy' who is in the graduate programme but also used to be an intern like me two years ago, and we had meetings once a week. I was also assigned a senior advisor who has been in the firm for over 7 years and gave me an overview of how would it be like to work in here full-time.

The firm invests quite a lot in training their interns, and also in making itself likeable. Despite acknowledging the importance of technology within the firm, I got the impression that the focus is on developing a business mindset for the employees, which is fine - but not enough. Most of the training/events regarded business, the impact that the firm has on society, and how to protect and increase its reputation. Opportunities for development in technology were fewer and less exciting.

I enjoyed working here but I am not sure I would do it full-time. The internship was very well organised and I liked the atmosphere in the office and all my colleagues were really nice - but I would need to be lucky enough to be assigned to a project that I like, and most of the projects involve working with finance and business applications which I am not really fond of.

There were over 60 interns between the two offices in Glasgow. We all met during our induction day in London and the other events that have been organised later. I managed to make lots of friends and we would all see each other during lunch breaks.

Glasgow is relatively cheap and has as much to offer as any major big city in the UK.

Nightlife in Glasgow is really good and diverse. I have been living there for 3 years before the start of the internship, but in a different area. The office is actually in the city centre which is close to all the main pubs, clubs and venues.

Yes - there were many events and societies, even week-end trips. Unfortunately I did not really take part in any of them.