Summer intern - Group Operations Review

My internship has been very enjoyable, it gave me the opportunity to gain work experience and use the skills I have been developing at uni.

I have mainly been supporting different projects and picking up tasks that my colleagues may not have had time with, so I definitely felt valued as I was helping out.

I count myself very lucky as my line manager could not have been more supportive. Not only with my work and the charity events I organised, but he acted as a mentor and we would regularly sit down and discuss career options and further education. I never felt stupid for asking silly questions, but at the same time I wasn't being hand-held throughout the internship. I feel that I have developed many transferrable skills and become a lot better at showing initiative, and I definitely think that I have my LM to thank for that.

At the beginning I had quite a lot to do, but when my LM went on holiday I was bored quite often. I did however realise that it was not up to other people to find me work, and that I needed to take initiative if I wanted something to do.

I was gradually given more responsibility, when our Product Performance Analysts left for a new job I took over some of his tasks and then took care of the handover when a new person was appointed.

I have had the opportunity to work on quite a few transferable skills which will help regardless of the kind of job I end up in. I did have the opportunity to do some online training about business analysis, which is an area I would like to work in, so this can definitely be useful in the future.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere in my office, everyone was extremely kind and always willing to help if I had any questions. During my first week I shadowed people from most of the teams to better understand how the business worked, and this definitely helped me develop relationships with my colleagues.

The opening event and communication leading up to the start of the internship was organised really well, as was everything organised by my LM, however the same cannot be said about the Emerging Talent Team. The 40 interns staying here were forced to move twice during the last two weeks, and the communication regarding the practical details of this was extremely poor. The hotel for the last week was only booked two weeks before we were meant to move there, and as everyone in Edinburgh knows it is almost impossible to book anything around the Fringe, so I can only imagine how much this will have cost the organisation. We were also not told when we could move into our first accommodation until 2 days (!) before, so as a foreign student I had to take a guess when booking my plane ticket and ended up having to stay at a hostel for 2 nights.

I sat down for a 1-on-1 with my LM pretty much every week to discuss my objectives and to fill out my balance scorecard. There was online training available for plenty of different courses.

I believe most interns get a referral onto the Grad scheme, which allows you to do 3-4 placements (depending on which stream you are on) in 2 years.

40 of us were staying together in the student halls and there were always people up for doing something, so the social aspect was definitely one of the highlights of the placement!

Compared to Glasgow (where I study) Edinburgh is definitely a bit pricier, but when you take into consideration the tourists, the Fringe, and Edinburgh being the capital, it does make sense. You can however always find cheaper alternatives, so it is all up to yourself.

Amazing! Edinburgh really has something for everyone, it is very unlikely that you would get bored here!

Several teams organised different events for their charity challenge, so you definitely had the opportunity to get involved. I don't think my office organised much, and as it was an hour outside of Edinburgh I probably wouldn't have been able to attend.