Spring Intern Review

The week was enjoyable, especially the two days that gave me an insight into two business areas, Global Markets and Research and Global Corporate and Investment Banking. During these days, a variety of activities were planned and I learned a lot about each of the areas. I also enjoyed the soft skills sessions given, especially the one on presentation skills.

I felt BofAML spend a lot of time ensuring we understood the company and their values throughout the week and I felt they had spent a lot of time and effort organising the week with valuable learning sessions for us. When we met people from the different business lines, I felt they were open and willing to answer all questions and everyone was very open and friendly.

Not coming from an economic background, I felt the guidance and support through exercises was excellent. Everyone was willing to help and by the end of the exercises, I felt that I had learned something new and built a good foundation to have a better understanding when researching online to learn more myself.

The technical skills I learned are not relevant to my degree but the soft skills sessions taken throughout the week will definitely improve how I deliver a presentation during my degree. The skills I learned will, however, help me in the future because this is a career path I want to follow so I have learned invaluable information about BofAML and the banking industry.

The insight week was structured very well and allowed me to learn about different aspects of the bank within a short period of time. There was a networking opportunity daily with individuals from different parts of the bank as well as more formal sessions. The soft skills sessions were well split up with technical presentations and work shadowing experiences, meaning there was a good variety of activities each day.

The atmosphere was very exciting and it was nice to meet many different people with the same interests as me from many different universities from across Europe. There was an overall willingness to help to allow you to learn more from every department and there were very few times where there was nothing to do as the programme was well organised.

I feel BofAML invested a lot of time during the week ensuring I understood an investment bank and the different lines of business. A variety of activities were organised throughout the week and there were some evening events also. I felt a lot of thought had gone into the variety of presentations and the firm wanted us enjoy our time there.

During sessions each division highlighted the different tasks and roles an analyst would take on and the sort of projects I would be working on should I join the firm. The week also informed me about the structure of their summer programmes as well as their full-time analyst programmes.

I feel the insight week gave a snapshot of what it is like to work at BofAML and gave me a good idea of the culture and atmosphere of the firm. After meeting different people from different parts of the firm it allowed me to develop an idea of the working environment and the people.

Learning about all the divisions allowed me to understand the role I could take on in each department, which really helped me decide which line of business I would like to go into. Without this insight, I do not think I would have known as much about different business lines which would have made the decision harder.

Living outside London, accommodation was arranged and all train and tube expenses throughout the week were reimbursed.

Yes, there were plenty of opportunities to network with employees from the firm.

The networking events were well organised and nearly every day. All lines of businesses were there so it allowed us to learn more about them, even the ones we were not work shadowing. They were quite informal and the employees were happy to answer any questions that we had. Two social events were organised in the evening and these were enjoyable.

There were sessions, both a presentation and networking event, organised to learn more about the volunteering events the employees get involved with as well the different networks employees can get involved in throughout the year.

Yes I would recommend this insight week to a friend if they would like to learn more about investment banking and learn more about the culture at BofAML.