Industrial Placement - Technology (Application Development) Review

Thoroughly! Through out my placement there was a good balance of development and challenge. The strong emphasis on positive workplace culture was endearing. The addition of interns at many firm wide events supported the level of inclusion and respect you would expect. All round positive life experience.

I was placed in some great teams where my contribution was vital to meeting goals. Although this might seem daunting, it insured that my input was needed. The features worked on increased in difficulty as time progressed and allowed me to show my skill. Certainly a challenging environment, which is where I thrive.

Support at Morgan Stanley is taken very seriously. Especially for the less experienced members of the firm. Everyone I met had the drive and ambition to teach their skills to the learners of the firm. Communication is key in providing that support and there is an excellent range of mediums to provide that support. This includes mail groups, one to one meetings, progress reports, team standups and instant messaging (and more). One slight negative is that sometimes, as a student, it is hard to understand the scheduling requirements of certain members of staff. Learning when people are too busy is a key skill to grasp. Saying that however, this is not a serious issue it just may take some time to get that support and there are often other people who can help. This is completely understandable in some high workflow areas.

This is very dependent on your supervisor and the tasks the wider team have to face. I found that the newer teams, who were building new systems, often provided me with more work. This is simply due to the full team having to learn and understand the requirements together. This also meant that there was always something new to do. A new feature or a fix or so on. Older teams, who worked on legacy software, often require a lot of understanding before you know the effect of your change. Being new to the team meant you often either spent time learning yourself or had to ask around more to find someone who would know. This sometimes left me bored due to the not having that additional knowledge of the process. Personally I suit the more fast paced new environments, it suits my drive for completion well. Legacy systems will suit people who have a drive for knowledge and are willing to get deep into learning about obscure systems.

Lead with exceptional ideas is one of the key values at Morgan Stanley and is responsible for a number of the refreshing personality traits of the firm. One such advantage of this value is the equality of all employees. No one is dismissed for their ideas or discussion. This meant that my input was important to all areas of development. I was involved in meetings with the teams who we were developing software for. Spent time talking to users and understanding the business requirements. I was tasked with producing a key feature for the project. Included in team discussion and decisions about the different task and features required. I was a full member of the team and this was reflected in the responsibilities I was given. Understandably there are tasks that you are not asked to do, often the more "Morganised" tasks. This is simply thanks to the uniqueness of these products and their infrequent use making them not beneficial to grasp.

Before my placement, a year of university seemed like a wealth of knowledge. But my placement easily proved that wrong. There is such a deep well of knowledge available and deployed across the firm that its hard to pick a single thing that stood out. Many of the skills showed me how to "produces" something, a skill that you don't learn at university. From design of projects to the deployment to production. I will stick to the best practices I learned throughout my time. I will develop on the skills and software I learned about and enjoy in more detail without time constraints when I return to university. Outside of the technical skills, working is good for developing social and soft skills. Something I could honestly say has improved rapidly from my placement. Communication is always a develop area and at any level will improve throughout your placement.

Friendly. Busy. Engaging. I think its best to understand that there is plenty of work to be done. However I never found it stressful thanks to the amount of fun intertwined. It is also engaging as discussions will break out about all matter of things both about things inside and outside work. No hard pressure on you and no feeling of people watching you work, something I expected to experience .

On the recruitment team there is not a single fault. The start was very well scripted. Including all the training and meeting people into a small time this is a challenge and it went without a hiccup. Through the time the summer interns were there we had a strong level of interaction with the recruitment team. This included talks about the different areas, focus groups, events and so on. Overall a well rounded placement. After the summer interns left the level of engagement lowered. Which is acceptable. It was good however to be more included in firm/tech wide events (Which had been harder with the large amount of summer interns). Often being included to events so we could talk about our experience to other candidates. On the other hand, within the teams there was some poor organisation. Some work was not planned or well laid out to best suit the intern. I think this is personal to the team/manager involved. I would certainly say that this let down the fantastic job from the recruitment team.

Highly. Within an organisation that has a global impact it would be easy to not hire interns. The full aim of the internship program is to invest in students earlier and allow them to grow and develop with the guidance of experienced members of staff. There were and large number of talks from different members surrounding the idea of career developments. It was good to see that these ideas were not all about Morgan Stanley and often speakers had left to chase career goals and often returned to the firm. Also there were regular reviews with both recruitment teams and managers to talk about how you are doing and to set goals for your own development. I found these very helpful. Often these feedback sessions would lead to my improvement in those problem areas, which is a bonus to all involved.

Morgan Stanley really do aim to invest in your development with the hopes of you returning to the firm. The interviews in order to enter the internship program are very similar to the interviews for the graduate scheme only a little lower level. The graduate scheme offers you a place on a highly regarded training course held in New York & London over the course of 3 months. This is often a strong incentive to return. Along with this there are plenty of opportunities for personal and career development through your time at Morgan Stanley, There are certainly plenty of success stories to back that up, for example many of the currently high level management went through the same training course as is offered to you. Another thing to note is that the success rate of conversion is pretty high, which is based on your years work, reviews and exit interview. However there are instances where you may not get offered the chance to return which means you do have to work hard and prove yourself, not plain sailing.

There were a large amount of interns that were hired, somewhere in the region of 100, that were spread over a variety of area. There was plenty of opportunity for students to socialise with each other through the number of events put on by the recruitment team and also those set up by the interns them self. Rather like university however not everyone gets on within the year and there is nothing the recruitment team can do about it. However this never caused an issue and there was no divide between the students I spent most of my time with. Within the firm there are plenty of opportunities to interact with other members of staff. Between meetings, lunch, team events, firm events, communities and open areas. All these different spaces meant it was easy to get to know people. Everyone was friendly enough to talk to and due to the scale there was bound to be someone you enjoyed talking to.

Weatherspoons is your best friend! However Glasgow isn't the most expensive city to live and socialise in thanks to the high population of students. This keeps things cheep. Food is also pretty cheap in the canteen and eating out isn't an issue either. With places like Weatherspoons, Toni Macs, Wagamams just around the corner meant that you are never stuck for choice. Often for lunch your biggest challenge is time. Morgan Stanley also lets you know the other interns a little before hand. This makes setting up renting with one of them pretty easy and there are plenty of student flats in Glasgow. There are also a bar, club or restaurant for any kind of event in Glasgow.

Nightlife is good in Glasgow, again thanks to the students. Also Morgan Stanley Glasgow have a dress down Friday, for charity, which is super useful for a Friday night out. Many of the teams and interns tend to go out at the weekend. Many of the clubs have student nights, which is now harder for you to go to on weekdays, but no the less offer better deals.