Summer Intern Review

It certainly exceeded my expectations, in no small part helped by the kindness and welcoming nature of all the colleagues I encountered within my internship. At no point did I feel like a temporary summer intern during my summer.

I felt like part of the team and as a colleague rather than an intern from day one. Everyone was continually helpful and welcoming to me. The work I was given was of actual value to the company, so everyone was keen to help me in completing my project.

My manager gave me full independence to run my own project, but gave me the necessary support and contacts where necessary as well as a weekly one to one meeting. He trusted me to use my own initiative, which I appreciated.

Running my own project for the summer meant I was very much in control of my time - at times I would be waiting for information from another part of the bank but at others I would have back to back calls and meetings throughout the day.

I was given total responsibility over a project, which meant doing the research, sourcing the relevant contacts and holding meetings from the get go. This was a welcome surprise to me, and gave me a chance to develop and grow within my internship.

I built a tonne of practical skills which I hadn't in my degree - from hosting meetings and conference calls with a variety of stakeholders to producing high level reports for my manager - and certainly gained plenty of examples to use in future competency interviews.

I was actually within an outbound call centre rather than within a team subset within the office, although everyone was always cheerful and helpful towards me. I never experienced any negativity or hostility within my office.

My manager gave me a set project to work on over the summer, and gave me total independence with this to work on. This meant organising my own schedule rather than having one pre set up for me, but nonetheless had support when required.

My manager was always keen and willing to let me shadow any part of the business whenever I wanted, meaning I got to shadow over 5 people during my 8 weeks interning. I was also free to do online training through the business, and my manager always asked if there was anything else he could do with regards to personal development in my weekly one to ones.

There is clearly lots of investment put into their grads and interns, who are given responsibility and independence from the start which is pretty appealing to me.

LBG put around 40 of us interns up in student accommodation for free for the whole summer in Edinburgh (during the fringe a well!), meaning it sort of felt like first year again except everyone actually had money! I made some great friends and this was certainly one of the key highlights of the internship.

Living in central Edinburgh meant pubs were pretty pricey, but still not too expensive compared to London.

Right next to Grassmarket in Edinburgh, so plenty of bars and pubs around. A few students also studied at Edinburgh uni so knew where to go on nights out - a pretty great city in my opinion!

We were all given a charity team challenge with other interns to raise money for children in need, which meant there were plenty of events throughout the summer, such as a gig, comedy night, football tournament, pub golf etc..