Intern Review

My internship was one of the most productive and enjoyable experiences I have had as a student. In order to enjoy your time at Santander, it's combination of efforts from you and your team. Once I had developed a relationship with my colleagues, the experience was all about learning and having fun along with it.

Fortunate for me, I was given responsibilties concering the BAU's (Business as usual) from the very start. My colleagues understood that I am unfamiliar with the systems and environment so they helped me settle down and gave me numerous chances to prove my self and actually add value to the process.

All interns are assigned a Line Manager from day one who they report to, in my case I had unconditonal support from my manager. I was guided on how to go about making this a successful interrnsip and was also provided with guidance that could prove useful in my future career.

The trends for this answer would be highly volatile but I can definitely say that the amount of work/responsibility exceeded my expectations. There was enough work to keep me busy up to atleast 17:00 everyday. Ofcourse on busy days this could even extend by 2 hours. The work load is nothing to be scared of and won't be dumped on you all at once. It's a very smooth and gradual increase which also expands your capactiy to perform tasks.

As you may have read in my previous answers, I was given a fair amount of responsibilities. These are given to you based on your performances. This will depend on your level of commitment and hard work.

I can definitly say that I have developed and polished skills that will benefit me in the future, From techincal computer skills to relationship management, these are skills that will always prove to be useful in your life. If you need to go back to university to complete your final year, these skills will prove useful when networking.

All the people in office were quite friendly and warm. I worked in the Portman house office which is based on one floor so almost everyone knew each other which made it a rather pleasent and fun enviroment to work in.

It was well organised in terms of joining in and being allocated a team to work in. The steps before that are still improving with the vetting documents etc. Some interns were delayed with their locations and there were some last minute changes. Hopefully Santander will overcome these and have a smooth joining procedure. During the internship we had a number conference calls for all interns and two events hosted in leicester which were quite successful.

When you start working with Santander, it does take a couple of weeks for you to get familiarised with the systems and atmosphere. Every bank has a different structure and model of work so you are provided with training by more experienced employees who are your teachers/mentors. I believe the main investement a firm can make on you is give you time which I was given plenty of to learn and fit in to the Santander way of work/

The graduate scheme is a very attractive prospect which consists of different roations and a lot of vocational training.

I will definitely miss all the friends I have made here, the unity among all the interns was an example for everyone!

If you work in a company that is at the level of Santander, you could well be placed in very central locations to smaller towns in England. My office was based in central London which did make it a costly experience with food, travel and entertainment.

In terms of night life, I was based in possibly one of the best locations with Soho and Liecester square only minutes away! You could always find some one to go grab a drink with after work.

Santander definitly focuses on extra curriculars and the CSR scheme is great oppurtunity for anyone willing to get involved in charity work.