Summer emergng technologist Review

I enjoyed my internship because I always had something to do. Whether it was training, tasks, meeting or calls, there was always something to do. And if I was less busy I took up extra training to learn more about the business. Although, I was in a team that was heavily tech focused, with no deep experience in coding, I was able to start learning how to code.

My colleagues were very nice and sociable. They made me feel welcomed from the very first day. I was invited to drinks, lunches with the team and they always engaged me in nice conversations. Despite being the youngest and the only woman on the team, I had no problem feeling welcomed and respected.

My manager was a good manager in terms of giving me a lot of information, giving me tasks that other interns did not have and enabling me to reach the best of my ability. I had tasks ranging from different trainings to presentations to working on moving databases from our servers to the cloud.

I was relatively busy on most days, however they were days when I simply had no tasks to do. However, I kept myself busy, scheduling meetings with different people in the bank ranging from associates to directors and managing directors. I also took training modules that were for other divisions of the bank.

I was given too much responsibility for actual business functions during my placement. I think this was mostly because I was only going to be around for 9 weeks and my manager did not want a situation where I was taking the lead of something only for me to disappear by the end of august.

I am working on an engineering degree so I am guessing the skills I have learned in terms of databases would help me in my final year project. However, I intend to go to business school afterwards so the training I learn from other divisions would definitely help me in that sense.

It was on open plan office which could get a bit frustrating as you could hear everyone's conversation. However, in terms of culture, most people are super friendly and always willing to help or just have conversations. And this ranges from other interns all they way to managing directors. Yes, there is always that one person whose energy is off but most people here are so friendly, polite and have a good range of emotional intelligence.

It was generally well organized, the HR team did a relatively good job getting the interns into teams. However, they were a lot of interns who got teams that were opposite to their preferred teams such as developers being placed in analyst teams and vice versa, this was a bit frustrating but with enough effort, you can work through it.

We did not have a week's training like the front office interns, however there were a lot training materials available online though you had to plan and organize your learning yourself. You could take technical trainings all the way to training in other business divisions. I did wish that we a got bit more training that was properly structured and scheduled.

From what I have seen and experienced, Barclays seems like a great company to work for in terms of culture and people. I believe it is very important to work with nice and polite people with emotional intelligence and most of the people who work for Barclays in London have that.

We interns organized events every Friday and during the week so we met up quite a few times. In terms of within my team, I was the youngest and the only female on the team so I did not really have much in common with them, in addition to that, I do not drink so I wasn't able to go to pubs and bars but we did have lunches together outside the office.

I worked in Canary Wharf, so cost of living was quite expensive if you look at it nationally. However, in terms of London living you could get relatively cheap flat shares nearby as tower hamlets is a cheap area to live in London. Socializing would be on the pricey side for students as drinks and food are expensive.

I do not drink and very rarely go out to pubs or nightclubs. I am guessing the nightlife could work for some people. But I generally prefer small intimate bars in the west end. However I do not think there are any nightclubs in canary wharf but there are a few pubs.

Yes there were activities to get involved in outside work such as volunteering for charity work, yoga, networking events, and there were range of social groups. So there is a group for everyone whether you are LGBTQ, BAME, women, working parents etc. You had to sign up for these and you got newsletters detailing what was happening.