Research Assistant Review

The placement was very good and gave an excellent insight into working in a central bank or conducting analytical work. However at times it was monotonous with a lot of spreadsheet and excel work, with little opportunity to demonstrate economic knowledge in written analysis.

The teams seem to realise that although I am a placement student that they could not function without some of the key work that I conduct

Quite a lot of support from my line manager who was really good at encouraging my work and trying to resolve problems of too little/too much work, however the team manager who was responsible for coming up with small analytical work for me to do often struggled to find appropriate work.

As I have said the job is ocassionally monotonous and therefore can be boring but at other times there is an awful lot of work in general if the work was spaced out better it would be a perfect balance. the benefit of this is that when you have some down time you are able to read around the subject more.

We were given some responsibilities but i felt at times that I could have taken on more. This was recognised in the last 2 months of the 13 month placement but it was possibly too late by then

I learnt a lot of skills about the workspace and how to conduct myself in a busy office environment. I also learnt a lot of economic knowledge which will be useful for my degree and dissertation. There were plenty of opportunities for furtehr training and you are encouraged to better yourself.

The office I was in was quite social and there were opportunities to socialise outside of work as well as lunch with others

There is a fair amount of organisation put in to placing you in the right place, but there is a lot of variation within the placements. Some people have to work lots of hours but get a lot of over time whilst other don't. There is also no set list of jobs/training that everyone on placement would conduct

I was regularly encouraged to go out on training courses and the induction program is wide ranging with trips out into the City to learn about Lloyds and other key parts of the city.

I would really love to work for this organisation in future, however to go into the roles that I have been exposed to you require a masters. There is a scheme in which you can apply to do a post final year summer internship and at the end you will be assesed as to whether they will fund your masters for you. However, the chances of getting through to the scheme and then the chances of being offered a funded masters are low. In addition to this you have to apply for the masters in advance of knowing whether you have funding and in the case of what appears to be the preffered universities (i.e. oxford, cambridge, LSE) the masters cost a lot of money. I can't afford to fund my own masters and I don't believe it is worth the risk of applying.

We go out for lunches regularly as well as nights out in the area colse to the bank. I feel that I will keep in contact with many of them in future.

It is very expensive to socialise in the area but you learn to make the most of happy hour

there are plenty of pubs, clubs and bars in the vicinity of the Bank

Opportuinities to join clubs such as wine tasting, the Bank's choir, visit Governors day (the banks family sports day), watch the lord mayors show from the balconies surrounding the bank