IT Project Management / Developer Review

Despite the initial learning period in which I felt that I couldn't properly contribute, once I had an understanding of what was required of me, it was clear that I had become part of the team and was actually contributing to the business. I felt this allowed for an experience of the actual work that employee’s undertake.

I felt that I had become a valued member of the team. This meant that my colleagues were treating me with the same amount of respect that they gave each other. The working culture at Nomura was good, as everyone I spoke to was friendly and they were all will to help, even when talking to some global heads of departments.

I was assigned both a mentor and a buddy, in addition to being able to ask anything I wanted to any member of my team and my manager, overall this lead to a very helpful experience. If I had any issues or problems I had plenty of people to ask, and they would all try to solve my issues. This meant that I had been completely supported.

Initially, I was not very busy. This was due to the fact that I had lots of things to learn in order to be able to participate fully in the team. Once I had done the initial learning the work load picked up and I had a good amount of work to do, not too much that I was buried, but enough to keep me busy.

Whilst at work I had experience multiple job roles. The amount of responsibility I was given varied slightly by role, but still was a reasonable in each role. In a project management team I was responsible for part of a huge cyber program, and as a developer I was given a project to work on that was going into production as soon as possible.

The main benefit I found from my placement was that it vastly improved my time management skills, as well as communication and interpersonal skills. This did make my further years at university slightly easier, however I feel the skills I gained were useful in day-to-day life more than for university work.

The atmosphere in Nomura was surprisingly friendly. The impression I had of banks prior to starting is the stereotype of an American bank. However, here it was completely different. Everyone was friendly and willing to help, despite everyone being quite busy. As the firm isn’t massive it allowed for a community where it was possible to know a large proportion of the other people who worked there.

Whether it was HR or the individual managers who organised the placement experience (most likely a combination of both), they did a good job. There were clear goals set out for me from day one, and I never was made to feel overwhelmed, not knowing what to do (even if I had, I would have had plenty of people to ask).

Nomura provides lots of online training that can be done at any time, as well as offering varied training sessions throughout the year, some for just interns and some for everyone. It also had some external talkers, from a variety of sectors, come in to explain to us how their business works. In addition to this they also sent me to a cyber security conference since it was a topic I was interested in.

I believe that there are good prospects for future employment, as I know lots of people who have already gone through the Internship programme and came back to the company through the graduate programme. From working here I got the impression that they want to hire any suitable candidate from the internship programme as they can.

It was surprising how much socialising happened between the interns whilst I was there. Not only did some of us almost always have lunch together every day, but there was lots of out of work socialising that went on. Not only that, but after I went back to university after the year had finished, I still routinely kept in contact with some of the people I met whilst working.

It’s London, you have to expect that it is going to be expensive. That being said you do have lots of choice, and everything is in a good location.

Expensive, but lots of choice, and some of the country’s best nightlife.

There is a huge drive for charity in the workplace. That means that there were lots of out of work charity events organised. Over my time on placement I took part in the following charity events: 3 Peaks mountain climbing challenge Volunteer for a children’s animal adventure afternoon Helped doing DIY in the Shoreditch’s rich mix A Softball tournament Helping at the Olympic village Various bakesales Pub Quizzes Charity Challenge Those were just the event I took part in, there were many more that I did not participate in.