Intern Review

I really enjoyed the internship at RBS. The role and project I was aligned to was stimulating and challenging and facilitated a lot of learning and development in a short space of time. I had a very high level of exposure to senior managers and executives which allowed me to establish a profile within the division. I loved the social aspect of the placement. I lived with 3 other interns for the duration and spent a lot of my free time with the group of 40 interns based in Edinburgh.

My colleagues really valued my input and contribution to the team, exceeding my expectations in this respect. My line manager had requested an intern specifically to get an 'outside' perspective on the project, which I was able to provide along with more informed input as the internship progressed.

My manager has been exceptional in supporting and guiding me. Throughout the internship he consistently looked for opportunities to develop me and give me interesting experiences. I had weekly 1 to 1s to measure my progress against my objectives and to identify areas where I could develop further. The department had a whole was a very supportive and approachable atmosphere.

In my first week I didn't have much ownership of tasks but as the internship progressed I was given ownership of work and actually project managed one stream of work. As I became integrated with the team, the amount of work increased. At the end of the internship, I now have slightly more work than I might otherwise like, but I am pleased that I am trusted to complete important pieces of work and manage my time effectively.

I was given a lot more responsibility than I expected. During the internship I have project managed a workstream, completed large pieces of work with a relatively low level of supervision, and have presented my own work to senior managers and executives.

The skills I value most are the 'soft skills' associated with working in an office environment. These include working interdependently, managing a range of stakeholders, working and progressing multiple workstreams simultaneously, and remaining focused in a sometimes distracting environment.

The atmosphere was relaxed and supportive. People had coffee with eachother a lot and often took time to chat to eachother. The atmosphere varied alot depending on how many people were working out of that base on any particular day.

The internship was quite well organised. The main problem was that HR were slow providing locations and roles in the run up to the internship which made planning difficult. Questions in this respect were met with quite of a lot of obfuscation. Generally, thinks seemed 'last minute' and a bit rushed.

The firm invested a lot of time and energy in my development (although a lot of this was down to my department and my manager). I gained a formal qualfication and had opportunities to do more had I have had the time.

I realised that , although I enjoyed the job and learnt a lot, that I am not particularly interested in financial services. The assignment of roles is basically pot luck so I don't have a great deal of confidence in the graduate scheme and getting roles I enjoy. In terms of financial services though, I would place RBS over other firms in terms of work like balance and working atmosphere.

Great social scene- couldn't have asked for more. Made some really good friends during the internship. The interns would go to the pub/ go into town a couple of times during the week, and we'd always go out on a Friday night. We spent most of the weekends together as a fairly big group, seeing the city and relaxing together.

Could have been a lot cheaper if I hadn't eaten out and drank so much. Overall not bad- housing was around £400 a month, travel around £50. I spent about twice what I thought socialising.

The nightlife in Edinburgh was reasonably good as the Fringe was on during the internship.

I didn't get involved in activies out of work- I would've liked to join some kind of activity but it wasn't highlighted and didn't actively seek it out.