Summer Intern Review

There were bits I enjoyed and there were bits that I really didn't enjoy. It went between extremes of feeling really great about the job to really struggling to enjoy it. The most satisfying points were when I had been given a project and upon completion people showed a great deal of recognition. But then there were times when I was given the most menial and boring jobs. So it was a bit of a mix really.

Some people were fantastic and gave me a lot of support and helped me out a lot. They took the time to sit with me and talk to me about a lot of things. Then at times some people didn't recognise the purpose of the internship, they gave menial tasks that did not present any opportunity to use any of my strengths to add value. All they wanted was my time to save them from doing boring tasks. An 'oh it's just an intern' mentality.

Some people were great and really mentored me and gave me support that I value highly and will be immensely valuable in the future. There has to be something to be said about the value of learning how to cope in an office environment, something which I found initially challenging. They were always there if I needed to ask for help.

The responsibility was almost entirely on me to find work to do. While this did help me to work on my confidence, and forced me to put myself out there and interact with people in all sorts of roles, and it forced me to break down the mental barriers I had about interacting with people; it was incredibly difficult and I didn't necessarilly find the most effective things to do with my time. Then again, I did some things that I wouldn't have done otherwise. There were a few too many times when I was doing very boring, unskilled work. There were other times when I was not sure if I would have anything to do the next day. Things came in fairly sporadically. At the start, there was literally nothing for me to do, so I had to meet people around the office and offer my help to anyone who needed it.

Almost none. Anything that I achieved was more or less self guided. People would have coped if I had not done my work, but I have made a bit of a difference.

My confidence has developed hugely. I cannot express the importance of experience. Good or bad, there have been lessons to learn; there is nothing like hands on experience. This has helped me to understand careers and what I want in the future. I put myself into an environment that made me uncomfortable and that has challenged me in unexpected ways.

Mostly reserved. The people that sit around the desk that I use were very rarely in, so most days it was just me and one other person, there was a load of other people on the other side of the office though. When I sat with different teams you could tell they were quite close and there was some fun to be had.

All of the essential stuff like accommodation and pay were all fine. I was not given a single project to work on, instead I had to look for things to do. While I learnt a lot this way, it is not necessarily the way I would have preferred to do things.

A few people did take the time to sit and work with me to help me become more familiar with the bank, when they did we had some really great conversations. Most people really didn't want to go out of their way to babysit the intern though.

Maybe I would be interested in another department, but I have learnt about my strengths and weaknesses and I my be inclined to find another department or field. The business has far too much bureaucracy, and the department I was in was not technically challenging, it was much more people management and client facing.

We were a good bunch and all got along to different extents, but we all had a good time getting to know eachother. The other interns were definitely a highlight of the internship and made it far more enjoyable.

Lloyds payed for the accommodation, so that was a huge help. Food was no more expensive in Manchester than anywhere else, but the bars and clubs were a lot more expensive than in other places that I've lived.

We didn't go out with colleagues, only the interns.

There wasn't anything going on that work organised. This didn't stop us as interns going out for a meal every now and then or arranging to do something interesting between us. We even managed to get in to watch them film the competition Ninja Warrior