Global Markets Summer Analyst Review

I had a great time on my internship at Nomura. The internship program gives you an opportunity to rotate on three desks. This gave me the opportunity to see businesses in FX, Rates, EM, Exotics and Equities across sales, trading and structuring roles. I had a great time and would highly recommend it!

On all three rotations, I had an opportunity so see that Nomura truly has a very flat management structure. On all three desks I was given work that contributed to the output of the team and I was always encouraged to share my views when appropriate. This made me feel valued and really made the internship feel worthwhile.

Shadowing, as in all sales and trading internships, forms a large part of your day-to-day activity. Across all desks, my managers encouraged me to shadow various members of the team. Furthermore, when I had large, independent project work to do, members of teams were happy to help whenever I had an honest question about how to proceed.

Some days are busier than others on an internship and you have to always expect that some days will be quiet, especially when the desk on which you are working is busy. That said, there were very few days where I had little to do and all of my desks kept me busy with shadowing and projects. In addition, there was a trading game and we presented a group project each work - there was always a great deal to get on with!

On a sales and trading internship, the amount of responsibility you can have is naturally limited given that you can't speak to clients directly or trade. However, my desks gave me large projects that they didn't have the time to complete themselves and contributed to their day-to-day business. Given that these were independent and any errors are your own and could be costly, the level of responsibility that I was given was much higher than I anticipated.

I study economics at university and the internship has given me a real insight into markets and the financial industry that will be invaluable for my studies going forward. The training I received in product valuation/pricing and IT skills in Excel and VBA will also be highly useful for my course, in particular my dissertation next year.

The atmosphere in the office was great. All colleagues, no matter how senior, are always interested and willing to help if you have a genuine interest or an honest question. The atmosphere on a trading floor can be quite frantic (I had the opportunity to stay overnight for Brexit) and there's always a buzz on the trading floor during market events.

The internship was incredibly well organised. The HR team allocated us to three desks at the outset and made sure that we were given well-defined things to do for each of those desks. In addition, we had regular speaker events, product sessions, a trading game, weekly group presentations, networking events and social events.

Nomura provided us with training on Bloomberg and on Excel at the outset of the internship. Throughout my time, members of staff of all levels of seniority were always willing to teach me about products, the business and finance in general. This on-the-job style learning was really valuable and represents a significant investment of senior people's time.

I lived 25 minutes away from work in Mile End, at Queen Mary University. Queen Mary's accommodation for the summer cost around £2500 - that gave me a bedroom (spacious for London) with en-suite and access to shared flat facilities (kitchen, washing machines, etc. ). I lived with a group of friends with uni and we always did stuff at the weekends.

London's nightlife is great in general and living near the middle of London was great in this respect. At Nomura itself there is a rooftop bar with amazing views over the Thames. Downstairs there is a pub that lots of staff and interns go to after work. As Nomura is right in the middle of the City, there are other bars and restaurants nearby for going out after work or at the weekends.

On the internship lots of social activities were provided for the interns. We had a mid-way intern laser tag event, networking drinks and took part in a community event where we painted a social centre near Bethnal Green. On top of the formally organised stuff, as interns we did lots of stuff together outside of work in the evenings and at the weekends.