Summer Intern Review

Interesting, challenging, liked the people. At times the HR stuff got a bit too much, but they provided good networking opportunities.

The work I was doing was adding real value to the team, especially after the first couple of introductory weeks on the desk.

We were given a week's training to start with to bring everyone up to speed, buddies were assigned so we always had someone to ask if we had any silly questions and senior management were all very approachable.

Mostly very busy with various tasks on my desk at a time, but there were a couple of days when the US market was closed and my boss was on holiday where I had a little less to do.

I drafted presentations and wrote research notes that were then sent out to clients (occasionally without revision), so I felt the work I was doing was important. Was involved in the discussion of new trades but obviously had little input in this area.

They were irrelevant to my degree, but the internship was a valuable insight to working life within a bank and in general, and helped me in making career decisions. Also important it taught me how to interact with people in a professional environment.

Got on well with the guys, was generally quite busy. My first desk (a Trading desk) was a little less interesting.

It was a monumental effort to co-ordinate over 50 interns rotating around almost 60 desks on a twice daily basis, but it all seemed to flow as if it were normal. After the rotations the internship was well structured, with projects on each desk and presentations every other week. The last week tailed off a little bit as people more or less knew whether or not they had a place, and got a bit complacent.

The first week's induction was very informative, and the rotation system meant that a lot of people had to give up a lot of time to meet us. The networking events were occasionally a little under-subscribed on the employee side though.

I enjoy working with the people on the desk and I'm glad they're willing to take me on.

Lots of activity on the weekends, with go-karting, partying, etc. and occasionally on weekday evenings too. Some people had other friends in town and were around a little less, but everyone was seen at some point or another.

London's pretty expensive, but you get paid enough to cover it.

London nightlife, lots happening but occasionally the long bus ride home at 3 am was off-putting.

The networking events were a good starting point to meet the other 260 odd interns in the whole of GBM, and after that we arranged nights out and other events ourselves.