Investment banking intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my internship. I gained so much from my five weeks spent with JP Morgan, on both a professional and a personal level. Also, I formed meaningful connections with both employees and with some of the other interns. There was obviously a lot of uncertainty due to covid-19, but the company did a fantastic job at adapting the internship to a virtual format, and managed to create an extremely valuable and enjoyable internship.

I felt very valued by my colleagues all throughout the internship, and even before it started. My team were in touch with me weeks before my official start date, and even spent some of their free time getting me up to speed so I could hit the ground running. Everyone made time to check in with me, and I genuinely felt like they wanted to see me succeed. To a certain extent, I felt like my work was valued, but in such a short amount of time it simply isn't possible to receive the appropriate training to produce important/valuable work. Despite this, as I said, I still felt very valued by my colleagues.

We were given a support structure that made this very easy. We all had a manager, and we also had a 'buddy' who was a less senior person in the team. We had weekly checkins with the manager where we could ask questions and get feedback. I was actually in touch with my buddy every single day and felt like I could ask her any question I wanted to, which was a fantastic support structure. I did have to push for feedback though.

Our main focus was on a case study that we would present to management at the end of the internship. In this manner there was always something to be done, as the project was introduced to us on the first day on the desk, and the presentation was on our last day. When we were given 'live' project work it got very busy as we had to do this as well as the case study, and this was more random and time sensitive. I never had nothing to do.

I was given a lot of personal responsibility, regarding the case study. I even got to choose my own company to be the topic of it. I formulated my own deadlines for research, formatting, practicing, and so on. I was not given much 'real' responsibility though, however I believe this is simply because of the difficulties of the remote nature of the internship and the security concerns that come with it. I think if it had been in person we would have had much more real responsibility.

The main thing I got from this internship was a new sense of confidence, and I bring this to all areas of my life, both academic and beyond. Speaking to seniors, sending professional emails, doing networking calls, learning business lingo - this all came together to help me become massively more confident. The financial training was very interesting and useful for the internship, but it does not come into play for my degree. The time management skills and working under pressure are also very useful in every day life.

Obviously this was a virtual internship, so it was harder to get a feel of the general atmosphere in the office relative to normal years. However, I can confidently say that I got a good feeling from both my team and the wider JP Morgan London office as a whole. Employees made effort to talk to the interns and get to know us by hosting coffee mornings and doing talks and round table discussions. I get the feeling that if I were in the office I could happily go up to anyone and ask a question.

Incredibly organised. Again, I am so impressed that HR managed to make the internship such a success - this is the first year it has been virtual and you really wouldn't have known it. On our end, I don't think there were any big difficulties or mess ups. There was always something to do, someone to talk to, and many opportunities to hear from different people which is so valuable to us as interns. Lots of resources provided as well to help us make the most of the internship remotely.

Incredibly so, the first week was purely for training purposes and our teams were not allowed to give us any work so that we could focus on the financial training. There were also talks from HR about how to make the most of the internship and what qualities they were looking for, as well as how to demonstrate these qualities in our everyday work and in our final case study presentation to our team managers.

I would love to work for JP Morgan in the future. Investment banking is a demanding and difficult career, but that is the case at any investment bank you go to - this is not a fault of JP Morgan as a company. So although I have hesitations about the lifestyle that comes with the job, I do know that JP Morgan is a wonderful company and a great place to start your career in the financial services.

I would have liked a better social scene, but again due to the virtual nature this was just so difficult

Internship was remote so I was able to work from home for free, which helped me save a lot of money as otherwise I would have had to move to London and find an apartment to rent. London prices are shockingly expensive, especially if you dont want a long commute (which you wouldn't on top of the long hours of the job), so I feel lucky to be able to save the money I would have spent. I also didn't spend any money socialising because there were no interns where I lived.