Spring Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the people and the interactive sessions. We met a really wide variety of people, all of which had different experiences at Nomura - really good insight. However, the restructuring that was talking place highlighted the level of automation at the firm. Therefore, throughout the week I kept questioning job security if I ever came to work at Nomura as a graduate.

I felt valued to an extent as a lot of staff had taken time out of their days to come and speak to us. However, compared to other firms, I did not feel as valued. For example, we didn't get to meet as many senior members of staff (as I have at other firms).

Everyone was there to support us - I felt very supported. I especially liked the sessions from iBank; coming from a non-finance background, this was incredibly useful especially at the start of the programme. All the other grads/employees we spoke to were also really supportive and understand that we didn't have the wealth of knowledge they had so were accommodating when speaking to us.

I study Biomedical Sciences so the spring week at Nomura can't really help me in my degree as much as it would have for others. However, the knowledge I gained will be helpful in moving forward my career in financial services. I definitely feel more confident going into interviews now for summer internships.

It was really well structured as we were given a timetable of the week, which was planned hour by hour. The spring week stuck to the timetable as well, which was really useful. Each day had a different topic e.g. one day was Global Markets, one on Investment Banking and another on Corporate Infrastructure.

The atmosphere was really good - everyone was really nice and friendly and I have made some good friends. The interactive sessions (about 1 per day) were especially fun. Most of the talks were interesting and the networking sessions were also good and more relaxing which was nice. Generally a nice, friendly atmosphere.

Significant extent but maybe it would have been nice to know more about the employee networks and the Japanese culture of the firm. However, the spring week was really good insight into what a full time role would look like. It also highlighted to me the importance of job stability.

I was not reimbursed any expenses as they could only cover costs of travelling in and out of London. As I was commuting in from the outskirts of London so they were unable to reimburse me. However, a lot of my friends from the spring week were reimbursed if they had travelled from elsewhere out of London.

Every day there was a networking lunch/dinner/speed networking during the day. This was really good at breaking the day up and making it more interactive rather than just presentations/case study activities. It also gave a lot of context to the information we were being taught as we were able to hear about other peoples' experiences within Nomura.

Sometimes the networking would be hard as we would be eating lunch as well as networking. It was still really good and interesting though. Dinner and drinks were provided after work during the middle of the spring week - this was such a good experience as we all got to talk to each other without having to network with other employees. This gave us the opportunity to make friends which was really nice.