Investments Intern at Standard Life Aberdeen

SLA gave me a fantastic introduction to the world of asset management, and I thoroughly enjoyed the 10 weeks I spent there. My colleagues were fantastic, and I was given the chance to develop my skills by working on real problems, as well as having autonomy over a project for the duration of my internship. I would highly recommend the experience.

The team were absolutely fantastic at making sure I understood difficult concepts, and I was always able to ask them if I had any questions. They were also good at organising social events and including me in these

My manager was careful to ensure I always had the skills and knowledge I needed to carry out my job, and was always honest and offered helpful feedback that allowed me to improve and work on my weaknesses.

During the middle weeks I had plenty of work to do, working on a couple of projects and preparing for my final presentation. However the beginning and end of the internship were quite slow in terms of work flow, which I suppose is to be expected.

I was given a project that I had pretty much free rein over, and was given all the tools and support to investigate a number of areas. On another project, I was heavily involved in meeting with parties outside of the SLA group.

The Excel course at the beginning of the internship was particularly helpful, as I was able to apply these skills throughout the 10 weeks. They try to organise 1 "skills session" per week for the interns, which complements the learning you are doing on the job.

My team were great and we had a lot of fun during the day and socialising after work. More generally, there is still a lot of discontent surrounding the merger and the aftermath. Quite a lot of senior people are leaving as well.

The regular skills sessions were well organised, and we received a weekly email detailing plans for the week ahead. I didn't get my project until the 3rd week and I had to find it myself, whereas HR had implied that we would be given a project on day 1.

As mentioned, weekly skills sessions showed that SLA wanted to invest in us: Excel training, communication skills and presentation skills were just some examples of this.

SLA operate a fantastic rotational graduate scheme that I would recommend to anyone.

Yes very good, although mainly organised ourselves rather than by the firm. They did put on a leaving drinks on our last day.

Central London so predictably high - managers/colleagues were very generous about paying for things though!

London again, so plenty of different options but quite expensive

There were a number of networks that you could join, and some of the interns got involved with company sports teams etc