Diary of another investment banking intern: Week one

Well well, it’s the first week of the much anticipated IBD internship.

Arriving at the bank 9am in the morning. It feels like the first day at university all over again with everyone trying to make a great first impression. Since it is the first day, most of us are still feeling a little shy but the buzz of the “first day” still made us a talkative bunch. The day kicked off with a series of Health and Safety and compliance talks. It wasn’t particularly exciting but I did manage to stay alert throughout the session. The moral of the story is to never ever to discuss any information with an outsider (including your mother…), and that should keep you away from the jail.

The internship program at my bank will last 12 weeks, with one full week of training. After going through one morning session of necessary basic info, the training got into full swing. We went through accounting basics, EXCEL shortcuts and different techniques used in comparable analysis. I’d never imagined being able to do so many amazing things on EXCEL and I have just found out now how useful the program really is. Don’t worry if you have no experience in the program, the training is all about making you an expert in the field!

Coming from a non-finance background, the training was very useful for me in every way. It started with the basics before drilling down into the real dirty comp sheets. The amount of material we went through each day was phenomenal. We were also introduced to many professional programs this week including Bloomberg, Data Stream and Perfect Information etc. Most of the programs are very user friendly and easy to pick up, but I guess practice is always the key!

Now that the first week is over, we are starting on Monday at our desks. The first week has been great fun, and hopefully it will be a safe and enjoyable ride till the end!