Technology Summer Intern Review

I really enjoyed the placement. There was a great group of other interns so socially it was a very good environment. The hours were very reasonable and you were not expected to work longer than a 9-5 day. There were also fun socials between the interns, and a whole week dedicated to training.

My colleagues were really happy to have an intern on the team and gave me meaningful real life work to do. They appreciated my skills and listened to my ideas. They were also very social and were very welcoming. They invited me to the team socials after work and made me feel part of the team.

My manager was very supportive and always offered help whenever it was needed. We had regular catch up sessions and she gave me general mentoring tips to progress my career. She also took the time to explain any technical or work-related points that I did not have a background in.

The internship started a bit slowly but as it went on I was given more work and responsibility. There were times that I was very busy and times when I was a bit quieter but this was fine if you managed your time well. There was always the opportunity to do more work if you asked for it.

I think I was given an appropriate amount of responsibility given my skills. Where I felt confident I was able to take more ownership, and where I had less experience I was given more guidance. As the internship progressed I was also given more responsibility. Perhaps if I wanted to be challenged a bit further I could have been given more responsibility.

The skills were definitely very useful for future careers. These included hard skills such as coding experience and UX design experience as well as softer skills such as networking with colleagues. The training would be useful for those looking to pursue a career in finance and the coding skills would be more relevant for those studying for a Computer Science degree.

The office was in Canary Wharf and it was a nice modern building. At times the atmosphere was a bit quiet and people focused on doing their own work, but there was some social aspect. It was also easy to meet with other interns in the building at lunch or in breaks for more social time.

It was very well organised, the HR team were great and really friendly. From the interview to the end, everything was communicated very clearly and easy to follow. There was an app that gave updates of events to interns so it was always very clear what events were organised for each week.

We had a whole week of training at the start of the internship which included financial training, personal training and technology (division specific) training. There was a bit of formal training during the internship (though perhaps there could have been slightly more). In terms of non-formal training, employees were really happy to help interns when needed and there was a great mentoring scheme for personal development.

The graduate scheme is very appealing. It is well paid for what it is and has a dedicated 3 months of training. It is also only a year long and from there you are able to progress to better or higher paid jobs. I also know a good friendship group of interns who would be returning too.

There was a really nice social scene amongst fellow interns. We came from a wide range of universities and backgrounds but we were all a similar age and got along well. We always went for drinks every Friday and organised nights out with each other. We also met for lunch everyday.

I was living in London so it was very expensive both in terms of rent and general living costs. There would have been the option to live further out for less money but the commute would have been longer. However I found that the pay was good enough to make up for this and it is expected living in a big city.

I was living in London so it was always very busy and it had a great nightlife. There is also a massive choice of places to go and all were fairly easily accessed by tube. The only thing is the clubs and bars were very expensive and also very busy on weekends.

There were events organised outside of work between interns and also between colleagues in the team I was placed in. However these were not formally organised by the company and it would have been nice to have some organised sports teams or clubs that you could join as an intern.