Market and Securities Spring Insight Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my Markets and Security Services Spring Insight week. Compared to other insight weeks, Citi gives you all week desk shadowing on the trading floor which was an amazing experience. Sometimes however I felt that the week lacked structure. My desk handled a complex product so they couldn't give me work to do. Most of my days I spent desk shadowing and networking. Overall I think the desk shadowing should of been held back a day, and instead spent the monday networking / presentations

I felt very valued on my desk and the team got to know me very well. However as we hardly spent any time together the students didnt really have time to build 'relationships' and were often too tired to network when we all got back. Thus i didnt feel valued amoungst my student peers

We were given a 'buddy' who is sort of seen as a peer mentor, they would answer any questions i had. HR were approachable and friendly, however as they are assessing you throughout the week I felt scared to ask all my questions. The junior on my desk was probably my closet support system I had and I didn't feel stupid asking silly question.

Considering the AC has a teamwork segment, we hardly did any 'team building' / group presentation work, which I think would of brought us closer together. The week taught me more about what bankers actually do day - to day and helped me to identify asset class / role which I would prefer to go into in the future.

HR had obviously spent alot of time preparing the spring week, but as I said above the days were not at all. I would get in the office for 7 and finish on my desk at 6pm, we did this everyday. I felt that this dragged out the week. I would of prefered more structured desk shadowing so that people had time to explain what they do, without feeling like we were bothering them.

The atmosphere was less intense than I though, however you can tell throughout the week that people were getting tired (and maybe bored) of the desk shadowing specially if they had snothing to do. The overall feeling of the week was very fun and the sales/trading team were more than happy to have us shadowing them even if they were busy.