Case study - Solveigh Volk, Business School student and Goldman Sachs intern
I selected investment banking for my internship because I was looking for
a challenging placement, which would provide a steep learning curve for me as an intern.
I wanted to gain exposure to a fast moving and highly
professional environment and to work with bright people. I applied to
Goldman Sachs because this was one of the first names to cross
my mind when I thought of investment banking.
I chose to apply to the FICC division because I was interested in the mixture of the excitement of
sitting on a trading floor combined with the "bigger" picture in terms of
politics & economics, which can profoundly influence the markets.
I spent the first two weeks of my internship on Goldman Sachs' FICC Easter
programme, which is geared towards first-year students and second-years on a four-year course with no prior knowledge of the FICC market.
The programme offers a snapshot of activities within the Division and gave me
the opportunity to rotate around 10 different desks, which has provided me
with a good grounding as to how the various businesses within FICC
interrelate.
This was a really good way to start and lots of fun. I also built up a good network of contacts across the trading floor through the variety of social events that were organised.
For the ensuing 10 weeks, I've been assigned to the Euro Medium Term Notes
(EMTN) desk. My working day begins at around 7.45 a.m. when I check my
emails and catch up on overnight market developments.
Then I go straight
to the Debt Capital Markets (DCM) morning meeting with about 20 to 30
professionals, where we fix our priorities for the day ahead. As the day
progresses, my work is a mixture of projects, weekly report
responsibilities and ad hoc tasks.
One of my major projects in the past few weeks has been to assist in the preparation of a series of internal lectures about the Private Placement and EMTN business.
About once a week I have lunch out with either colleagues, my Mentor or my
Buddy, who is a junior colleague assigned to help me find my feet and
guide me through life in the Division.
I am also given the opportunity to attend training seminars, various presentations and listen to weekly conference calls on developments in different regions we work closely with.
My working day usually finishes at around 7p.m. The unpredictability of
the markets means that every day is different - there is no such thing as
a typical day!"
