Internship Review

J.P. Morgan communicated extremely well in the run up to the internship: which was especially appreciated given the uncertainty surrounding whether it was going ahead or not. The training leading up to the internship was very good and prepared me well. We had the opportunity to meet with lots of senior members of the team and had both structured and unstructured products to work on, with the opportunity to present to teams all around the world. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Everyone in my team went to a lot of effort to make me feel welcome, which was especially appreciated given the internship was conducted entirely online and could have felt lonely and that you were disconnected from the team. I had the chance to meet with senior members of my team: they made themselves known to me and were very approachable. We had zoom quizzes and lunches together so that I could get to know the team. The unstructured project meant I felt trusted to take it in a direction I felt best.

I had lots of support from both my buddies (analysts - one of whom had completed the same internship just a few years prior): it was great to have someone not too far removed from you in experience or age to give you advice. My manager was excellent at communicating with me: they gave me lots of very good advice and called me regularly to check that I was getting on fine with my projects. The support from HR was good too.

I felt like I had just the right amount to do! Having no finance background meant that the training that was assigned to me felt very productive as it was immediately applicable to the role and helped me to understand the content of the meetings. My project wasn’t very structured: which meant that I had lots of chance to show my initiative and grow my project to a manageable size without overworking myself - important when there’s no designated “working hours” when you’re at home.

Given the nature of the work, it’s hard to be given autonomy with what the actual role involves of course! However, I felt that I could contribute in meetings without being judged or looked down upon and that people valued my opinions. My project had lots of room for me to take it in my preferred direction, which whilst daunting to start with made me consider things carefully and ultimately lead to me learning more.

I can’t claim that the role gave me skills that will be useful in my degree as my degree is fairly unrelated. However, I definitely worked on y time management skills and communication skills - especially on the virtual networking and virtual presentation front: these are things that will be very important to me going forward. I also learnt lots about the firm, the culture, the nature of the work and the challenges the industry faces.

The people were very friendly! At all levels people made themselves known to me and were very approachable, which was very much appreciated given the virtual nature of the internship. We had team lunches on zoom which helped to make me feel welcome and one of the team members ran a quiz for our entire team that was a lot of fun. JP Morgan made their inclusivity policies clear: they are thorough and it definitely helped to know that they have made such strong commitments.

The communication running up he the internship was very good: which was very much appreciated given that we weren’t aware whether it was even going to be going ahead at the start of the summer with the uncertainty surrounding COVID. The buddy scheme worked well, the training was thorough and well-structured and the talks from senior speakers were interesting and well-run. The technology worked perfectly and the set up was assisted. The HR team provided good support.

It was made clear to us that our contributions were valued from the beginning, which certainly made you feel like you could get involved rather than sit on the periphery. The firm had clearly invested a lot into the technology that was being used in the internship and clearly lots of thought, time and effort had gone in to the training provided and the senior speaker schedule. We had instructor-led excel and presentation training which was great.

I am extremely excited to be joining the team that I completed my 10 week internship with. I was really hoping that the team liked me as much as I liked them! I really believe that the firm has a lot to offer me in terms of training and career progression opportunities. I loved the nature of the work and the people that I got to meet and work with and couldn’t imagine starting at a better place.

It was a bit different this year: the fact that the internship was online meant that obviously it was harder to socialise with team members in a normal sense - thus it was a bit harder to get to get to know people. It was also shorter than normal, which added to this. Having said all that, the quizzes and zoom lunches that we did made me believe that everyone was friendly and I hope to meet them in person soon!

This isn’t really applicable, as I was interning virtually and so was unable to actually get a sense of what the social scene might be like near the office. Being in central London, I am sure that the costs are not exactly low: but of course this is largely me speculating. A fair few of my team lived further out and commented in to work under normal circumstances, which alludes to the high prices in central London.

Again; I didn’t get to experience the nightlife as this was a virtual internship. However, the office is located in central London and is just perhaps a five minute walk away from the nearest tube station and so it is possible to get to wherever you want to be in London fairly quickly! Certainly there aren’t a shortage of things to do in central London under normal circumstances, even without visiting the office I’m sure of this!

Again, the fact that the COVID pandemic meant that the internship was online it was harder than ever this year to socialise with the other people that I worked with. I could call people for “coffee chats” - a model that worked fairly well but isn’t quite the same as it would normally be! I definitely enjoyed the few things that were available: such as the zoom quizzes and the zoom lunches that gave us a chance to chat informally.