Cassie Wu - Nomura International
Cassie is an intern currently working in the Investment Banking division at Nomura International. She will be writing a regular diary of her experiences in the UK
'For a student majoring in Finance, who happens to favour experiencing a different culture, the internship sounded a perfect opportunity to me. Therefore, I applied for the programme without any hesitation, despite the fact it was probably one of the most time-consuming application process that I have ever went through. But to me, it is definitely worthwhile.
Now I am working in the Investment Banking Division of Nomura International and stay with the Automotive Team. Out of all the different aspects of the Financial industry, investment banking is the one that triggers the most of my curiosity, not only because the notorious long hours, but also its nature as the exciting business which “gets the deal done”. Now every day I do every junior analyst is supposed to do, building company profiles, valuing company using comparables, and of course, reading flying e-mails keeping myself updated on the active deals or marketing meetings that I am involved in.
It is really not that desirable if you think of the fact that the work actually means sitting in front of the screen more than 12 hours per day playing with PowerPoint almost nonstop just to make the profile more informative and presentable. But what actually excites me is the nature of job as a front office job, which means what I am doing goes directly to the client.
Challenging, but exciting
However, it is not uncommon that what is exciting is, on the other hand, also challenging. I am not a native English speaker, and it is the very first time I have been abroad, but now I have to use the language so well that the sentences are tidy, short and informative. Needless to say all these have to be done before the deadline calls. But it is also not that interesting to work on something that is not challenging at all, isn’t it?
Last month it has been rather busy, since colleagues in my team started to take one or two weeks holidays in turn, so I have to take on extra work and responsibility. And I have all the reason to believe this month will be still crazy, since one of my colleagues is taking a wedding leave for three weeks. So I will do my best (wish me good luck!)
Colleagues are happy to answer my questions...
By the way, it really impressed me how people in Europe treasure having a life. The most usual way to start a conversation on Monday is always “How is your weekend”. I am really having a great time here; I even like fish and chips! The biggest difference is definitely language, but the two-week orientation program gives us enough time to get more used to use English daily, and get a rough idea how people lead a life here. And of course, colleagues are so nice that they are always happy to answer my stupid questions concerning life and culture here, as long as I am not asking the question in one of their busiest times.'
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