Summer IBD Intern Review

I had a great time at the firm. After a week of training, you spend nine weeks at the desk of an investment banking team, meaning you develop a thorough understanding of the product (or industry) you work with, and build good relationships with colleagues. There's also the opportunity to network with and learn more about teams across the investment banking division, allowing you to find out which team suits you best.

I felt very valued by colleagues, with the work I was tasked on both interesting and educative - it actually felt like I was contributing as they showed me how this work contributed to the final pitchbooks sent to clients, something that I greatly appreciated. I was encouraged to network with and learn more about teams across the investment banking division, allowing me to find out which team suits you best.

I was given strong support by colleagues, with supervisors offering me careers guidance and advice on how to build and leverage a network across the team and the firm. I was also given very useful advice on how to research, refine and present my intern project, something which I greatly appreciated.

I've had a good work/life balance generally, although I was working late nights during the final week leading up to my presentation. Otherwise I've had time to go to the gym and eat supper at home in the evenings, so not too bad at all, especially compared to some of the rumours you hear and the reputation of a typical investment banking intern's work/life balance.

At first I was given limited responsibility, simply watching the rest of the team do deals and sitting down with them to learn the basics of what they do. After the first few days, however, you're set increasing amounts of work, on both powerpoint and excel, that allow you to contribute to the final product - a process that is incredibly satisfying, being a rewarding learning curve for someone who has never done an internship in finance before.

There was a week of training at the start of the 10-week program, which went over accounting and valuation fundamentals: I think this would be most useful for those in M&A and coverage teams. I learnt most of my DCM-relevant experience on the desk, where the training was very informal, being on-the-job or developed in an hour-long chat going over DCM fundamentals. It won't really help me in my degree as I don't study finance, but will be useful going forward professionally.

I thought the atmosphere in the office was outstanding: everyone was really friendly, willing to help with my project and offer general advice for the internship. I learnt a lot about the various team members' different backgrounds, particularly how they broke into banking and DCM FIG. Regardless of whether you receive an offer, you build very good contacts for the future.

The first week was very well organised and structured: training, and the introduction to your team. The rest of the internship had events dotted throughout the remaining nine weeks, with introductions to each of the divisions delivered by key figures from a cross-section of teams. I greatly enjoyed these, and the rest of the time was spent with the team, with your schedule varying depending on your team's needs!

I received a lot of feedback throughout my internship, something I found very useful for my personal training and development. The feedback I found my useful was on my presentation, as I learnt how to deliver a more corporate, business-centred presentation as a pose to an academic, here-it-all-is as much information as possible presentation: a skill I will certainly bear in mind for the future.

Very appealing: opportunity to work for a global investment bank that offers international opportunities in a range of different investment banking businesses, varying from equity advisory, risk solutions, insurance solutions, debt capital markets, mergers and acquisitions and leveraged finance to coverage teams such as healthcare, private equity, financial institutions like insurance banks and asset managers - all in all a very diverse offering!

There were social events dotted throughout the internship. These were held both inside and outside the firm, and allowed you to develop your network both across the investment banking division teams and across the divisions, with corporate and global markets (Nomura's equivalent of sales and trading). I thought there could have been one or two more of these, but then again it's important to maintain a balance between networking and actually working for your team.

Cost of living was relatively high - accommodation I paid for near Old Street worked out at £215 a week. Eating and socialising means you're spending usually £30/40 a day, much higher than I'd ordinarily spend at uni, which is where the internship money came in use! I think with careful planning you could spend less, but working long hours you deserve to treat yourself and just want to focus on the internship to be honest!

Nightlife very variable: Shoreditch is near the city and offers a good variety of clubs, but tbh you can only really go out on Friday and Saturday nights which are not always the best in London. Can be jokes though.

Not really, you're very busy!