Intern Review

Seemed quite fun at first but quickly I ran out of things to do. I spent most of my time reading notes for university classes and learning programing languages online as I had finished my work weeks early. The events organised were quite interesting but stopped by the 4th week leaving a lot of unanswered questions. People would quite often ignore emails, meaning that quite often I had to chase people to try and get the answers I needed. Prior to starting at JP Morgan they lost all of my details, meaning I had to re-send it all, and between re-sending and the start of the internship they somehow lost half of it again, which did not give me the best first impression.

My team were very nice and welcoming. Any time I had a problem they were willing to drop what they were doing to try and help me sort it out. I met several very nice people through work-shadowing who were willing to show me what they were doing and send me follow up e-mails with links for further reading. However, whenever I tried to contact HR about an issue I was brushed off and given quick 'non-answers' which did not actually help. To try and resolve a single issue I had to open 3 separate HR tickets as they kept closing them without reading them.

My manager, buddy and senior adviser seemed to have no clue as to the internship process. Quite often they would need to ask me what was going on.For example my manager had no idea when I first met them that I had just come off a plane from the JP Morgan 2 day trip to London, while my Senior advisor had no idea what his role was. Also the 2 day trip to London was entirely focused on the finance departments, meaning that when we arrived back to start in tech we had no idea what to expect, even though we had just spent the entire previous day being told about 'working at JP Morgan'.

Not very busy. The first few weeks were spent reading about JP Morgan and the work already done by my team. The next few weeks were working on the project they had assigned me. However I finished this within a few weeks, meaning that I had next to nothing to do for the remaining 6 weeks. I've been trying to find things to fill the days while I'm here, trying to work-shadow as many people as possible to get away from my desk. I ended up going above and beyond the project specifications in an effort to find something to do, and even then I still struggled to fill my days.

Quite a lot. I was given a side project that was connected to my teams main project. It was something they had intended to start at some point but hadn't managed to find the time. It was my responsibility to not only start the project but document my progress such that another team member could continue my work after I'd left. I had to give daily reports on what I had achieved and what I planned to do that day, as well as provide my team with weekly reports which I would then discuss with them.

The project I was given used 2 programming languages I had no previous experience in. I taught myself how to use them from online resources and some JP Morgan resources. These programming languages will help me in the future as they introduced me to a new area of computing I had no previous experience in. Apart from that however I received no real training. We had to complete 'training' in the first few weeks, which was either basic security training (don't give anyone your password etc.) or very hard finance training which didn't apply to my department.

The general atmosphere was fun but busy. We were told to just go up to people and start talking, but the majority of people looked incredibly busy. The few people I did manage to talk to outside of my team were very friendly and willing to help but I didn't get the chance to talk to a lot of people. It also felt rather false, as we were treated as old friends by nearly everyone which in an office as large as this felt rather fake. Casual Fridays were quite good, especially since the dress code was soon reduced from smart to casual everyday while we were there.

Not well at all. The assessment centres were very limited and organised quite far apart. I was told I would get my contracts within the week and didn't get it for three (and they even had the cheek to impose a time limit on returning it). I then heard nothing, until they asked me for some more documents, at which point they promptly lost everything including my contract and had to ask for it all again. All the information we got was for a different office, including the 'pre-internship preparation' email which asked us to read several finance books even though we weren't in the finance department. The managers seemed to know very little about the internship beyond the fact they were getting an intern. Trying to solve a problem with your details was like digging for gold, you might find someone very helpful or you'll just be ignored. There was a forced volunteer day that was essentially 'go dig up this field' which was not very enjoyable, and it had a barbecue afterwards that was so poorly organised that they ended up cooking the food in the kitchen and it ended an hour late.

There was forced training exercise that you had to complete online according to what department you were in, but very little of it helped at all. The only thing I feel I've learned is how to work 9 till 5 which was more a side effect of the internship rather than a goal of the company. In the first few weeks we had tele-conference talks with several senior people in JP Morgan, but quite often these were held in America and we weren't connected properly meaning they weren't even aware we were watching. There was very little personal training offered, except for several Woman In Technology events which personally I felt were great, but there was nothing similar offered for male interns which feels a bit weird.

I was informed in the 6th week of the internship that all graduates were required to go to London for 6 weeks training. I informed the company that I was not able to visit this location due to medical reasons and I was told that the trip to London was compulsory. When I informed them that I was disappointed as I expected a company as global as this to have an alternative option for individuals like myself, I was offered a coffee to 'chat about it'. I replied open to any possibility of salvaging the graduate position, but was ignored and the individual never appeared. As such I cannot continue with employment prospects as JP Morgan does not value employee health, which given the lack of manners demonstrated, I cant help but feel it is not a great loss.

Not really no. In the first few weeks the other interns created a WhatsApp group and a Facebook group. This managed to arrange a few token lunches and pub visits. However this quickly died out by half way through the internship, with the WhatsApp group mainly being used for the odd question or banter. My team arranged a pot lunch and a leaving lunch for me to both welcome and say goodbye which was very nice of them indeed, but beyond that there was very little social scene. There are plenty of clubs available but most of them start up after the internship ends. A lot of the interns split into smaller 'cliques' which organised their own nights out.

I can't really comment on this as I personally lived with my parents and brought my lunch in with me. There is a place just down the road which does daily lunch deal for £3. The office is placed right next door to Central station, and a 8-10 minute walk from Queen street, meaning you are right in the middle of Glasgow. There are plenty of restaurants, fast food, sandwich and coffee shops available for any preference. You also receive a 'relocation fund' 2 days before you start which is meant to help you find a place to stay if need be, but honestly is given a little to late to be of any use.

I have no idea. I left the office at 5 and didn't stay out later than that so I can only provide you with generic knowledge. As the office is in the middle of Glasgow, you are not far from the main city centre where the majority of nightlife takes place. A few of the teams offer flexi time but only a few, so the majority of the interns finish at 5. Near to the office is Central station which is good for meeting people as everyone knows where it is, and the subway is a short 4 minute walk so travel is easy.

The majority of the opportunities are available after the internship finishes so there are not a lot available. For year long interns there are a lot of opportunities, not just technology activities but cricket, theatre, chess clubs etc. There is quite a wide variety but you do need to be at the company for longer than 10 weeks to properly enjoy them. A lot of the activities started up the week after we left. There was also quite a lot of activities that took place during working hours, such as coding dojos.