Investment intern Review

I got to work on interesting projects and learned a lot about the industry. It was a learning curve (but in a very good way!) The team were really friendly and my manager gave up a lot of time to make sure I understood everything.

Very valued - everyone was very friendly and keen to explain things. Other than work, I was invited to the team drinks and social events, or to go out to lunches with some of the team.

My supervisor gave up a lot of time to explain things or to chat through our meetings with fund managers. I also got feedback on my projects throughout the internship. Apart from my supervisor, other members of the team chatted through their work or invited me to their meetings.

Busy - but in a good way! A balance between my own projects (which I had to present at the end of the internship), joining my supervisor on his meetings with fund managers, or going to team meetings.

My projects were 'real' (not invented just for my internship), so there was responsibility to get the projects/ models working correctly. As well as the project work, I got to present at the weekly meetings and wrote up some research.

Not relevant directly to my course, but it will be useful from the point of view of time management and teamwork skills etc...

Friendly - almost every day, someone would bring in chocolates or snacks to share (for their birthday or after getting back from holiday). Lots of lunches or post-work drinks with the current grads in the team too.

I had two well-planned projects, and got regular feedback throughout. At the same time, I got to attend meetings with funds managers, and my supervisor would chat through the discussions before and after -- so I had a good chance to see the work the team does.

We had a week of training at the start, including Excel and Bloomberg. This was really useful as I had almost no Excel knowledge and had never used Bloomberg! Later in the internship, I also got to use Factset (financial data software) and got training for that, as well as access to their research journal subscriptions.

They really value you and are willing to invest a lot of time giving you the training and resources you need. I was especially impressed by how willing people were to give up time to chat through their place in the team, let me talk at meetings (when I wasn't too nervous!) or even just to grab lunch and ask how I was finding the internship.

HR were great at organising social events for all the interns, including a charity day, a tour of the London amphitheatre ruins, and an inflatable assault course evening (!) They also organised lunch twice a week for all the interns, where someone from Fidelity would present on their work and experiences. Other than the other interns, I had lunches and drinks with current grads and other people in the team.

Probably doesn't need to be said that London is pricey (!) but Fidelity gave us discount cards for locals shops, bars and restaurants when we started. You get to know your favourite places for lunch deals etc too.

Again, it's London! So you probably won't (shouldn't?!) be bored. Living in the middle of London for 8 weeks was one of the highlights, and Fridays / Saturdays were great -- especially if you've already got friends living there to meet up with.

Weekdays are busy, but at least that means you're tried when you get home and have a good excuse to eat out or have a drink with flatmates ;) Like I've mentioned, HR put on social activities - all the interns and current grads took a day out for a charity challenge, for example.