THIS IS A TESTIMONIAL FROM A PAST ALUMNIATHLETE WALL STREET INTERN
Investment banking is a tough job. From the long hours to the fire drills to the juggling of the many tasks it is a demanding job for which the excuse “I’m just an intern” would not slide past the first week.
If I were to describe a typical day it would be something like this:
9.30 ish arrive; work until lunch time; 12ish grab lunch; back to work until dinner time; and then work till you get the work done. This could be 9pm, 12am or 3am. Yet there is no such thing as a typical day in i-banking, at least I think so.
Doing an internship in investment banking is the best way to determine whether you would want this for a job or not. First of all you see for yourself what investment bankers do. Second you feel the heat of being an analyst for yourself. And you have the chance to experience the life style. It is one thing to hear people saying they work 80 – 90 hours a week, it is another to do it yourself and still another to do it for 10 weeks continuously.
There are many up and down sides to i-banking. The good sides are numerous. It is an intense course in finance yet it does not have the tedious atmosphere of a school course. The fire drills teach you to be always on the look, paying attention to details, running scenarios in your head, and always thinking what could go wrong. You learn to manage your time effectively. Investment banking could give you a skill set that would be helpful for the rest of your life.
The obvious down side is the life style: the notorious “long hours.” Work will keep you busy most of the time so you wouldn’t feel the hours passing while at work, yet the few hours you have outside will be speeding past you. A crucial down side could be the atmosphere at work. Since you’re spending your whole life at work whether you enjoy it or not would depend, to a large extent, on the people you work with. You could happen to be working with people you don’t like and that would be a problem.
It is important, once you start working i-banking, to set your priorities. I-banking is what you make out of it. You could be appalled at the long hours and mourn about it all the time, not doing your work, and not being open to learning new ideas and ways. Or you could be: Ok, I’m going to be spending long hours here anyway so I might take the most out of it, learn a lot, and expose myself to the many different things i-bankers do.
That’s why it is important to make a list, for yourself, of the things you want to take away from that internship and stay focused on those. Then bring your “work hard” attitude and don’t let anything distract you from following what’s important for you.
My advice would be: take responsibility for everything you do! Past the first couple of weeks people wouldn’t care if you were an intern, they would only care the work gets done. Whatever it is you are working on, and whoever you are working with it still remains your responsibility to check and double check everything is correct to the best of your knowledge. Just because you are at the bottom of the chain doesn’t mean you carry less responsibility!
And last but not least: take the most out of NY! Reach out to people you work with and meet, talk to them, see why they are in banking, or sales and trading or whatever it is that they do. That’ll help you figure out what you want to do in the short and long term.
My stay over the summer was the best summer internship I could have wished for. It was challenging and demanding, I didn’t have much free time yet I learned a lot about myself, life, the world on the Street, and what I want to do with my life.
*For more information on the AlumniAthlete Wall Street Internship Program refer to the AlumniAthlete Network on Gotta Mentor