Summer Intern Review

I really enjoyed it. I had challenging work and learnt a lot about the organisation, both in my home team and with week long stints in two other departments. I felt like I had ownership of my own work but also plenty of support and time from my colleagues to find the resources I needed.

I don't think "like family" would be the goal here, but everyone I met was friendly, encouraging and generous with feedback and recognition of where my work had contributed to a project. My main team were lovely, and there was a lot of 'give and take' sharing skills so I felt I was always helpful as well as having so many questions.

I didn't have much day to day contact with my manager, partly because he was away for 3 weeks during my 10 week internship. We had 3 catch-up meetings and that was fine as I had a lot of support and guidance from the colleagues I was working closely with. When I visited other departments the teams made sure I knew who I could come to with questions there.

As I had my own project to be getting on with I was never left with absolutely nothing to do. There was some downtime, especially during the beginning, whilst waiting for someone else to be free to answer questions or give feedback, but never so much that I was bored. I used the time to complete e-learning modules which looked interesting but not strictly necessary, and to read up on other departments and policies so I'm leaving with a good overview of the whole organisation.

I was given total responsibility for my project, including finding time in colleagues diaries for the input I needed, mostly free-reign over what the output looked like etc. However, my work was documentation and strategy planning. Had I done it badly it would just not have been used, with no harm done. Fortunately I was successful, and several of my ideas will be taken forward.

Essentially I learnt a complicated process quickly, documented it, used data analysis to quantify the issues, and suggested ways to improve the process. These are certainly transferrable skills. I also got to see behavioural economics lessons explored in the field which will certainly help in that module. Overall though I didn't use any of my classical economics training, and only basic data analysis.

Friendly but generally quiet with short outbursts of chatting. People felt free to interrupt each other to ask advice about work. There were also short breaks to discuss Love Island of course. There was very little presentee-ism, and I was encouraged to leave take my lunch break etc. Often people would bring snacks to share, suggest we get lunch together etc., with occasional after work socials.

The long wait for details of where we would be working was a little disconcerting (both for team names, and then not learning much about what 'X department' would actually entail until after the induction). The induction process was useful in hindsight but felt over-done at the time. Once I had started the internship proper it all ran smoothly.

I had complete access to e-learning, including areas that weren't related to my project. My manager included me in the team's external training on personal development which was personally useful even though my inclusion didn't bring long-term benefit to the team.

Very. The FCA are serious about being a good employer, and the emphasis on diversity & inclusion isn't just talk. Benefits like working from home, shifting hours, and a general emphasis on work life balance were evident in all the teams I visited. It also looks entirely possible to join in one position and work your way towards the type of work that interests you by unofficial collaborations, internal transfers etc.

The WhatsApp group was useful and meant if you wanted company for lunch it was there. There were a few organised after work meet-ups and more of a social scene if you wanted it, without pressure. (None of us used the facebook group before the internship, that didn't set the tone for how friendly people were once we started.)

Expensive, it's London. There's plenty of low cost things to do as well of course. Having the Olympic park there as a lunch venue was a perk.

It probably existed. I was living at home so didn't really explore it.

There were local free events organised which some of my colleagues went to and I'd have been welcome to. The FCA runs various Wellbeing events. My team had a couple of social meet-ups during my internship, and the interns had a few more.