Analyst Review

I enjoyed my internship a lot as I felt like I achieved a lot of personal development. My boss and team were also extremely supportive and welcoming. I got involved in a wide variety of tasks within my team and also was able to shadow different teams of my choice. Overall, I feel like it was a great 10 weeks both from a work and social perspective.

I felt valued by my team and was hardly ever treated as a 'spare part' but often did meaningful work that actually helped my team. I was welcomed by the wider team too. Furthermore, my line manager always encouraged me to voice any concerns and tell him if I wasn't happy as well as telling me to be selfish with my time to achieve the most out of this internship, making me feel like I was valued and my team wanted the best for me.

My line manager surpassed all expectations and was extremely supportive. I had weekly 121s where I received acknowledgement for the successes I had achieved that week as well as targets for the upcoming week. I also received guidance on matters not related specifically to the work I was doing e.g. future career advice, CV and interview skills help and generally how to excel as an individual starting out in their career.

There were some days I was busy but other days I did not have a lot to do. On these days, I completed the Intern training videos and activities, which I found very interesting and useful in their own right. Constructive criticism to future managers would be to not be scared to offload more work to interns, as I never felt out of my depth in terms of difficulty of work and could have therefore afforded to have a lot more work on my plate.

As with any internship, the responsibility that you'll be given is limited as you haven't passed any professional exams and you are not an expert in the line of work. However, I feel the responsibility I was given even though I was only here for 10 weeks was extremely fair and I came into the internship not expecting to be given this much responsibility. There were long tasks which I was fully accountable for which I really enjoyed and I would advise my line manager to give more of such tasks to next interns as I feel a lot of development was derived from this.

Even though the material I worked with is not related to my degree at all, I feel skills such as time management, prioritisation and perseverance whilst faced with difficult problems and learning from mistakes are extremely transferrable and will definitely help me in my degree this year. Further, soft skills needed to work in a large bank can only be acquired from a practical environment and I believe the emotional intelligence I have acquired through having to communicate with team members from different parts of the world and different ages will be very useful going forward.

The general atmosphere was warm and welcoming. My colleagues would often come up to me and introduce themselves which was nice. The dress code was relaxed and I usually came in to work in Jeans and trainers. It was often quite lively and there were a lot of cake and donut sales!

I feel the internship could have had more structure - many of my peers were not provided with much clear structure through the internship and some days did not have any meaningful work to do and were treated like a spare part which was demotivating. Furthermore, many interns came into work the first day not knowing what their job entails so I feel emerging talent should organise an insight day for incoming interns like other banks do.

There were many good 'Lunch n Learn' sessions which were organised within the internship I benefited from. These were sessions where a senior member from a different division would talk about issues currently affecting their line of work. By doing this we acquired a greater understanding of workings within the bank. Also, we were provided with a free subscription of Lynda.com where we could access really good excel, PowerPoint, coding courses.

LBG offer an extremely competitive Grad Scheme package which I would very interested in applying to. My only apprehension about applying to the Grad Scheme is that you don't get complete control of what division you will work in and get rotated 3 times over a 2 or 3 year period. I would want to personally pick what division I wanted to work in and then stay in that specific division.

There was a very good social scheme within interns. There were around 55-60 interns and we were all placed in the same free student accommodation, where we got to know each other well. We had a lot of common and often went out for drinks and food after work. Also, many of us were very career motivated too so were willing to help each other with applications, CV etc.

The cost of living was not extortionate but I expected it to be a lot cheaper. Drink prices in pubs and clubs were not much cheaper than London prices. Many of the tourist sites were also expensive so that was a deterrent to go out and see them. However, you can still find good places to socialise without breaking the bank if you look around.

The clubs in Edinburgh were not brilliant but all the same there was something for everyone's taste of music. During the Fringe festival, there was always something to do and there were many times we would just go to watch a few shows and have drinks after work. There were many good free shows too which was very appealing to many of us.

There were lots of local gyms that many of us signed up to and there was also a very good Thai boxing club. The kitchens in the accommodation were a good place to socialise and play fifa after work. There were bars, pubs, cinemas etc. that we often went to.