Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Nomura and felt as though I was a valuable member of the teams I worked in.

I didn't feel as though I was "Just an Intern" and I was given a fantastic amount of work and responsibilities by my colleagues

Every step of the way I felt that there was always a support structure behind me. From the day I joined I was given a Buddy for technical advice and a Mentor for long-term career advice. In addition to those I was also in teams of highly professional employees that were always happy to take the time to explain a concept to me - many of them commented how they were once in a similar position.

For the majority of my time at Nomura I was give quite a large workload, at some times it was difficult to balance the priorities of the role (I guess that is part of the learning curve). Although I was never overworked. On the odd occasion I had some down time my management were quite happy for me to get on with some side reading/learning related to the role

I was given a fantastic amount of responsibility on the placement, on many occasions I found myself heading up large scale projects within the company. At all times I had a great support structure around me and could always get advice if I ever felt out of my depth.

The Internship begins with a weeks worth of training in Financial Services to bring everybody up to a base level of understanding. After that the training is handed out on a per-team basis. I was fortunate enough to undergo a weeks worth of Vendor training for a technology my team was taking over and in addition to that I was also given time to do my own reading and gained additional qualifications during my Internship

My entire floor was populated by the techies of Nomura, this created a fantastic atmosphere to work in where any major team was just a short walk away.

The internship was very well structure for the first 10 weeks whilst Nomura's Summer Intern class were present. During this time there were events running every other day whether it be drinks or presentations about the Company. This dropped off after the Summer as the Industrial Placement students settled in to work. After the Summer we were treated as full-time employees and the only 'Intern' work we were given an intern project for the remainder of our time.

The firm invests a good deal into their Industrial Placement Interns. We were given the opportunity to move around teams to gain experience with no real constraint on where we could go. In addition to this we were given a large Intern Project which was the design of a new tool to be deployed in Nomura worldwide. The requirements gathering of this tool brought us to all areas of technology and up to the CTO himself - I believe this shows that they are serious about their interns.

Nomura actively recruits from their Intern pool for their Graduate Scheme. I know that in the previous year every intern from my division was offered a position once they had graduated.

The Grads and Interns frequently organised drinks evenings and lunches throughout the year. There were also many charity events organised which almost always had a sociable aspect. Thursday nights throughout the Summer a bar was brought in to create a drinks reception on the 6th Floor terrace overlooking the Thames.

I was fortunate enough to live at home and commute in to work - however the Season ticket from Bedfordshire was £3500+ although this did save a lot of money over living locally.

It's smack bang in the heart of London, you are spoilt for choice

Nomura runs events for their charity partner each year, during my time there events such as White Water Rafting, Treasure Hunts, City Walks and Drinks Evenings were planned with an entry fee. The entry was then donated to the Charity. In addition to this there are always workshops and networking events running each week, however I never made it to any of these