Hella

Yeah, real work has officially started. Orientation is over and I’m now busy with tasks that my manager and associates give to me. It’s really a nice change though as the lectures were getting a little bit stale. It also feels nice that I’m helping move the research team forward, even if in some very small way.

Yesterday I busied myself with reading some recent research reports on two sectors. It’s really the first time that I really dug into a full report on an entire industry. At the end of the day, I had a much clearer idea of industry terminology and metrics, the companies we cover, and some general themes in credit research.

Today I was busy with organizing a few data sets that will help us put together some projections that feed into the various models. Though I haven’t built a full model yet, I think by the end of the internship the team will work on getting me a company we don’t currently cover and allow me to build up the model from scratch. Mid-afternoon, the interns in my group attended a speaker series event hosted by two senior people in sales and trading. They both had some good points and got us thinking about what we should focus on while we’re at the bank for the summer. This was one of the most specific and valuable talks I’ve heard as they were both speaking directly to our experiences in terms of where we are at in our careers.

This summer, I have two mentors formally assigned to me in addition to a manager. Today I was able to set up informal chats with them for tomorrow; one over lunch and another for quick coffee. So far, the bank has done an excellent job of providing us access to very senior people who are genuinely interested in answering our questions and ensuring that we get the most out of our 10 weeks. That’s probably what I appreciate most about the program.

Filed under: B-School