Summer Analyst in Technology Division Review

I met a lot of interesting people (my team and fellow interns) and had a lot of fun designing my project and participating in various team activities. Also, I learnt a lot about the financial sector, which wasn't related to my degree in any way, however, I now find this field very interesting. I think this internship is a great opportunity for personal growth. I am now recommending it to my friends and students at my university.

At first, I had doubts whether my skills were sufficient to make any real impact within my team, as the software environment they work in is quite complicated. However, after receiving my team's feedback on my project I realised that I needn't have worried.

I could rely on my manager with whom I had (at least) weekly catch-up meetings to discuss anything I wanted - both related to my project or the entire intership experience. I was also assigned a buddy within my team who I could also depend on. My buddy did the same internship three years ago and could provide interesting perspective and some tips to help me gain as much experience as possible and succeed in the programme. Additionally, every intern is assigned a mentor - a more experienced employee from outside their team.

Days were usually divided between my own project and various meetings I needed to attend. As a result, my days were diverse and I didn't feel bored at any point. Also, I wasn't expected to work overtime - my manager wanted me to manage my own time to complete tasks, and talk to her in case the workload became to much for me.

I was a single developer on a small project. As I wasn't familiar with the environment at first, my collegues were giving me advice on possible solutions and I was then able to make recommendations to my managers regarding the key design choises, and I was making most of the less-crucial decisions myself.

I probably won't be able to utilize them in my studies as I'm almost finished with my degree and it's in a slighly different field. However, I think the hard skills will be very helpful in my future work in software development-related jobs, and I will be able to utilize the soft skills in any job.

It was peaceful and friendly. Everyone is very respectful towards others and the workplace is quite diverse. However, as it is an investment bank, in terms of 'fun' I wasn't expecting the office to be anywhere close to Google, Facebook or start-up offices (from what I hear about them), and I was proven right.

I think it was very well organised. Every intern had a group of people who helped us settle in and to whom we could talk in case of any trouble (manager - buddy - mentor).There was a large number of intern activities we attended - various presentations, lectures, Q&A sessions and team exercises - and every intern had them neatly orginised in their calendars by Human Capital Management employees that were in charge of the internship programme, so we always knew where to go next.

There were multiple trainings on hard skills (e.g. various programming languages) and some on soft skills (e.g. on what are the different types of personalities and how to work with people that have each of them). There are also various affinity groups the employees can join for additional trainings. However, there are some areas where the interns could benefit from additional trainings, e.g. on particular web technologies that are widely used witin the firm.

Within three weeks after completing the internship, I received an offer with the firm - next summer I will be returning to the team I was interning in. One of the things that I look forward to is that new analysts (so called NAPAs) first fly to New York for 6-8 weeks of training. In the training, NAPAs from various offices will participate - so I will be able to meet and network with fellow new analysts from my London office, but also people from the US, other European cities, Asia.

We were going out for beers at least once a week, had a picnic in Hyde Park once, went to the theatre, and some interns were partying more.

I would say the cost of socialising (e.g. eating our, going out for a beer) was pretty average for London - so, a beer was about £4-£5 and a lunch meal was about £5-£10, depending on the place. In terms of accomodation, I'm not sure what the prices are in the office's immediate neighborhood - I was living in Hammersmith and paying about £560 per month, which I think is pretty cheap.

There are plenty of pubs and bars in the office neighborood. The interns were going out for a few beers pretty much on every Friday night, and sometimes also on Saturdays. I'm not into clubbing, so I wasn't looking into the London club scene, but I know some interns were going clubbing as well.