Summer Intern Review

My experience with Goldman Sachs was fantastic. They give all their interns the chance to take on real responsibility. The projects that you work on make a real difference to the firm and you become part of a very supportive culture of professionals.

Even though I my colleagues on my internship have many more years experience than I do, they still valued my opinion and my work. Many of them took time out of their days to help me learn about the bank, there own roles within it, and even help me learn more about how to best perform my own role.

During my time there, I was assigned a buddy whom I sat next during my regular office work. He was always accommodating to my questions, and helped me understand any technical problems I was facing and how to overcome them. I was also in close contact with my manager with plenty of casual interactions and also a more formal weekly catchup meeting. He was very good at explaining the economics and process of the banking, which I was less familiar with before I started. He also offering advice on how to manage my career, and how I could make the most out of my internship. Aside from my manager and my buddy, I ended up meeting a lot of people within the firm, all of which were willing to offer help with any query I had.

Time management is a necessity at Goldman. As an intern you have your own project to work on and there is a lot of training throughout each week. You will be busy every day, but if you manage your time well, you can fit everything in. I found that the work I was doing was actually really good fun, so some days I would stay later in the evenings to see if I could get more done, or try out new things. Another thing to mention, my team was very good at setting realistic expectations, so although I was busy I never felt like I in over my head.

During my internship I was given a project that I was responsible for. It was my job to explore the possibilities for a new system that was going to be piloted. I was able to put my own ideas in the project I was working on, and draw in feedback from my peers and work that back in to what I was doing. While working on the project I got the chance to work with other business divisions which further improved my overall understanding of the bank. Once the system I was working on reached a presentable state, I was also responsible for demoing its capabilities to senior managers and directors and advising them to what the system may be able to do in the future.

My studies at university mainly focus on providing an overview to many different areas of Computer Science. Even though my university has modules that focus on software engineering, I feel like my time at Goldman has taught me what it means to develop software in a commercial setting and has equipped me with skills that I can apply to my own work. There is also a very strong ethos towards teamwork at Goldman. I would definitely say that my time over the Summer has helped me improve my interpersonal skills which has allowed me to work better when returning to university.

My time over the Summer was spent in the Technology Division and the team I was working in have their own space within one of the offices that Goldman owns. My team would bounce ideas of each other often but the office would never become overly noisy, which for me, are ideal working conditions. My team's culture was work focused, but not overly so. Refreshments were just around the corner from my desk and it was common for team members to take breaks every so often to recharge before getting on with what they were working on. One thing that stood out to me, is that everyone in my office enjoyed what they were doing. If you asked anyone what they were doing, they would happily talk you through what they were working on.

The structure of the internship makes sure that everyone on the programme is well supported and is gradually given responsibility when it is right for that individual. Throughout the whole internship there was lots of workshops, networking events, talks from senior leadership and training lectures. All of them were coordinated by the HCM department who would notify you of events in advance and place them in your calender.

There is large focus on training interns during their placement. There is lots of training provided and they work on the assumption that you are new to the role you are in and teach you everything you need to know from the ground up. I interned in the technology division, and although I come from a tech background, many of my peers came from non-related fields. It was a steeper learning curve for the people that had come from different backgrounds, but all the training was provided for everyone to perform the roles effectively. Even when I found that I needed to learn about something quite niche to work on my project, I received one on one training from both colleagues in my team and other teams so I never felt like I was unable to perform from being unable to find to about a topic.

I was very impressed by my internship and by how much Goldman invest into its own people. I enjoyed the work that I did while I was there, and would happily go back to work for them in the future. Goldman Sachs' culture is something you hear about and something that employees will talk about often. Everyone is always very supportive of each other, and will always give you their time to help out, and this is what appeals to me most about coming back to work at Goldman.

During my summer I lived in central London in Zone 1. I was living in student halls, which was around £200 a week which is about twice as much as I pay for accommodation while at university. Living costs can be kept low if you want to live cheap. The large supermarkets don't seem to charge extra for food deliveries for Central London. Anything else such as restaurants, the tube, or attractions are all generally quite expensive, but there are plenty of places you can visit for free.