Finance Internship Review

I really enjoyed my summer internship at American Express. I was an intern in the finance division, more specifically, Controllership, and I learned so much throughout the summer not only about my division and team but also about the company. I met constantly with individuals from different teams and divisions and learned about their roles and what they do, about their career progress and received great advice for what I should do in order to get the most out of my internship and be successful.

I felt very valued by my colleagues, especially my manager who was fully involved in my project and helped me with any questions I had. And I was also able to easily reach out to my other team members with questions about my project, the division or the company in general and they always made time to meet with me whenever it was necessary.

My manager was fully involved in my project and throughout my entire summer internship experience. She helped me a lot with any questions that I had and was always there to check my work and make sure I am progressing on my project. She also made time to have daily meetings with me, which I greatly appreciated.

Most days I was very busy. I always had something to work on, whether it was my project, side projects or meeting preparations. And because I always had work to do, I always felt like days just flew by, while being focused on learning and meeting as many people as I could.

I was given a fair amount of responsibility throughout the internship. I was given an important project to deliver for my team and although I had constant guidance, I was also given a fair amount of independence and flexibility, which I really enjoyed because I was able to take decisions about the project on my own and give suggestions which will make a good impact on the team in the future.

This internship experience was very valuable. I improved many skills, some of which are numerical, analytical and communication skills that I will take with me in my future, I developed as a person generally, met so many people from which I learned so much and now I have a more clear view of what I want to do next, what I am good at and what I am less good at and overall learned so much about what I should expect from a career in finance and what I should do to be successful in it.

In my office, the atmosphere was pretty calm, but people were easily reachable and easy to talk to. People were not stressed in my team and they were lovely to speak to. Overall, I felt very relaxed coming to work and definitely felt comfortable to be a part of my team.

The internship was very well organised. We had a clear internship structure from the beginning, we had many great intern events and community days: such as a trip in the London Eye and a boat trip on the river Thames, among others. We had weekly speakers events, with speakers from each division of the firm and the assessments were well organised and we were prepared for them in advance.

The firm put a lot of effort in our training, in our first week, we had a public speaking training and an Excel training and we were constantly given feedback on our performance and what we should improve, which was very helpful and it was a great chance for me to improve a lot about my public speaking skills, as well as many others.

I would really like to come back and work at Amex once I graduate. I think it is a great company to work for, with an amazing culture, great people and lots of opportunities to learn and develop, which is exactly the type of company that I am looking for. I would be glad to start my career here and experience as many roles as possible, which is another unique great thing about Amex.

Yes, all interns in finance were friends with each other, we always had lunch together and built great friendships. However, if there is something I think could be improved is more collaboration between finance, marketing, technology and operations interns, as I think that overall, we were clearly separate groups throughout the summer.

The cost of living and socialising was medium to high, as it is a central area of London. However, it is easy to reach by tube, so many of us had accommodation in cheaper areas around, so that was not an issue. There are a lot of lunch options around, with a wide range of prices, so that was not an inconvenience either.

The nightlife in our area was not great, however that was not an issue, as we could go out in other neighbourhoods in London.

Yes, there were many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work, such as community days and treasure hunt with our division, intern events: trip in the London Eye with all undergraduate interns, boat trip on the river Thames with both undergraduate and MBA interns and drinks with our teams.