Summer Technology Analyst Review

I have honestly enjoyed my internship. It was virtual due to the Covid-19 outbreak. However, everyone from HR, the senior members of Morgan Stanley, the employees were very involved and interested in our work and progress. I have learned a lot about the business, as well as the technology. I felt very accepted and respected, and free to develop and be a part of real teams. The internship was very successful, taking into consideration that almost everyone was working remotely.

I felt very valued by the people in my team, but also people from other teams into my division. I wasn't seen as an intern, but rather a regular employee. I was asked to present my work couple of times, and the attitude I received was no different than what the other colleagues do. My work was reviewed by multiple colleagues, and they have dedicated the time I needed in order to explain concepts, and code structures that would work well. I felt very accepted.

I had a daily catch-up call with my manager, who supported me in the project development, discussing and setting up my goals, directioning me into reasearch about things that I needed to use, and people I could learn from. Apart from professionally supporting me, my manager was very friendly, and really cared for my well-being, encouraging me to take breaks from work and talk about how I feel during. My buddy (methor) was also very supportive, and very helpful. She dedicated a lot of time to explain how Morgan Stanley's systems work, and how I would fit into the app development patterns. They were always available, and very quick in responding to my needs.

I was very busy. Apart from the work-based meetings, we as interns were a part of multiple training, senior talks, support meetings, team buildings. Everything was virtual due to the Covid-19 outbreak, but everyone was very involved into making us feel as a part of the Morgan Stanley community. My work day started at 9am, and finished at 5pm; however working from home leads to no clear boundary on when we shall stop, so I have usually worked after hours. This was partly due to the shorter summer program, and the large amount of intern sessions, which took time from the work day.

I was given a decent amount of responsibility, with the ability to access development databases, large code bases, set up continuous integration jobs, plan out the project development in different level of abstraction, and finally present my work to large audiences. Everyday I was asked to talk about my progess during team meetings. During the presentations, I was asked to explain where my project fits into the business needs, what is the architecture behind the project, what technologies are used, and why.

I was given a chance to see what is the life cycle of app development, and how the systems of Morgan Stanley are developed to support this process. During my placement, I was supported and explained to about planning out, estimation, goals, documentation, code review, security, deployment, testing. The time in Morgan Stanley has direction-ed me into subjects that I would like to have more knowledge into, and consequently be more productive in an environment with similar business needs.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I wasn't able to go to the office. However, the virtual atmosphere was very friendly. Everyday I was a part of short team meeting to track everybody's tasks and progress. Additionally, as a team there were meetings in order to plan the next sprints. There were chatty meet-ups as well. Whenever I had questions, my teammates were very responsive, and thorough in their explanations. All in all it was a very healthy surrounding to work in.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the internship was moved to be virtual. Additionally, it was shortened by 4 weeks. I would say that it was a bit inconvenient to learn very late that the country in which I was residing at the time, was not suitable in regards to accessing Morgan Stanley's systems. A trip, and accommodation had to be planned out in very short amount of time, during pandemic. During the internship, there were a lot of sessions that were mandatory for the interns. I didn't mind the content of the sessions, and I think they were insightful indeed; however the sessions were scattered throughout the day, which meant interruptions on the work. Otherwise, the overall set up was organised very well.

Very appealing.

There was a lot of accent on the communication with the other interns. We had lots of training on the business, as well as sessions led by the Morgan Stanley senior employees. Moreover, there was a intern challenge, in which we had to develop an AI player, in teams of 4 interns. Team building sessions, and Agile training were also a part of the program. During these sessions, we had the chance to communicate with each other extensively.