Summer Analyst Review

Considering that I am pursing a joint degree in Economics and Computer Science, I could say that doing an internship as an analyst and developer within the financial industry fits me best. I got the chance to apply and improve my knowledge by working with professionals. By attending the events organised across the internship programme, I developed communication and presentation skills. Overall, it was a great experience that I would highly recommend it.

I was lucky to be part of an amazing team who gave me all the necessary support. One thing is clear: there is no such thing as a silly question. My team took time for me and answered any query I had. You can see how the culture of the organisation reflects among its employees. One of its core values is "trust the team".

They made sure I am fulfilling my potential by assigning me challenging tasks and exposing me to as many technologies as possible. Moreover, they organised meetings where colleagues gave me an insight into their work so far in order to help me see the bigger picture across the division.

The amount of work was balanced. The first two weeks were meant to get familiar with the environment and the coding style. The following weeks I was asked to work on easy tasks and, by the end, of the internship I have already finished 2 projects and started the third one.

I went through the whole agile developing process: Backlog -> Development -> Development Complete -> QA -> Ready to Go. Most of the code I wrote (more than 75%) went to production because I have received the proper support and quality advice during code reviews.

Most of the new things I have learnt such as unit testing will definitely help me in my final year at university especially when I will be working on my final project. The internship experience made me feel more confident when it comes to my tehnical knowledge.

People I have been working with were open-minded and relieved even when working under pressure. The general atmosphere was both formal and positive. However, during lunch breaks I could not help but smile at smart jokes made by some colleagues.

On the technical side, there were several trainings organised across the internship programme on the technologies used within the company. Some of them were too general. However, you usually get to understand them deeply by working on real projects. In terms of soft skills and personal development, the quality of the trainings exceeded my expectations.

London is a great city to live in because you never get bored. There are multiple activities you can do starting from going to concerts, pubs to outdoor cinema and open air theatre in the summer time. The best thing about working in the City is that you are close to the main attractions. Moreover, you have access to quality services when it comes to food and drinks.

The number of opportunities was greater than I was expecting. I met a lot of people during networking as well as volunteering events. Moreover, I could sign up to join a social club where they usually hold trainings in order to further develop your soft skills. Another interesting event was related to analysing our personality type.