Back to School

It feels a bit strange going back to school after working at Citi this summer, but the experience is helping me appreciate all of the free time in college schedules!

In hindsight, the internship was a hugely positive experience.  Unfortunately, I did not get the offer for investment banking after my interview on the last day of the internship, but I did get the offer for the position I held for the summer.  I was able to break the ice for fall interviews and I gained a sense of direction from my experience.

The Citi internship was tailored a bit for Columbia students, which made it even better than it would have been from any other school.  Interns were pampered quite a bit  as it stood, but the extra advantages of coming from Columbia proved fruitful.  We met upper level management and got respect from the CEO of the company, who has gotten a handful of degrees from Columbia.

The Citi internship wasn't what I was striving for last spring when looking for a summer position, but I don't think I would have had as valuable of an experience in many of the other positions I was hoping to get.  Citi provided a breadth of exposure within the bank in both tech and business while also introducing us to very important people in the company.  Plus, they gave us a sweet "Citi" duffle bag.  Who else got duffle bags?

Home Stretch

With less than a week and a half left in my internship, I feel that it is really crunch time.  There’s a few projects that I want to put finishing touches on at work, I want to make sure to thank the different people I’ve talked to this summer, I need to prepare my end of summer presentation, and I have a job interview on the last day of work.  My past couple of weeks have been geared towards this end of summer dismount.

After many career path considerations and very little decisiveness, I decided I should get some more experience in finance this summer.  I joined a class at a place called the Investment Banking Institute.  I’ll admit that it sounds shady, but my sister and another mutual friend of ours took the same class and they both highly recommended it.  I figured that the class would be a good way to explore the investment banking industry and gain a little knowledge in case I pursue an IB job.  It has been an even better experience than I thought.  With a physics and engineering background I’m often lost in the class when large terms that I’ve never heard of are used, but I find that the modeling we have been doing comes relatively easily and learning the concepts is pretty fun.

The end of summer presentation that I'm doing at Citi is another item that deserves a good amount of attention from me.  I don’t really feel that the bar is set very high for us, but my performance will directly reflect on my managers.  My managers and their bosses will be there, so I need to at least make them look good.  I’ve been working to come up with a good presentation that will ideally stand out from the crowd.

The real finale of my 10 weeks is going to be the interview I landed.  I reached out to a Citi executive who gave us interns a talk one day, he connected me to a line of human resource people, and I received an offer to interview at a super day for investment banking at Citi on August 10 - the last day of the internship.  I will now interject with some (pretty obvious) wisdom: If you ever want to ask somebody a question, it cannot hurt to ask.  No matter who they are and whether or not you think they will respond, if you make sure not to be blatantly rude the worst that will happen is that they ignore your email.  The guy I emailed is the CEO of Securities and Banking at Citi, a HUGE position.  Despite his standing, he still connected me and ended up hooking me up with a great opportunity.

The internship is basically over, but I need to finish strong.  The presentation and the interview are going to be huge focus points, but leaving a lasting impression on the various people I’ve interacted with this summer is also a priority of mine.

Week 6 or so

The week of the Fourth was slow at the office.  The headcount was under 10 people a couple times in my department.  Nonetheless, the week was a blur of last minute travels: Martha’s Vineyard the weekend before the holiday, Rhode Island for the holiday, and finally my hometown the weekend after the holiday.  This partially explains why I haven’t written any posts recently.

The internship is still somewhat slow.  There are days with a good amount of work which is due in a timely fashion (usually Mondays).  Otherwise, the long term projects have taken a relatively short amount of time in relation to the time allowed for them.  I recently lost a project when something bureaucratic which I’m not entitled to know about delayed its timeframe outside of the summer analyst employment dates.  To pick up the slack, the duty of building the skeleton of the 2013 budget for our group has been handed to me.  I look forward to being involved in tweaking the baseline budget, because that is when it should get more interesting.

This internship’s redeeming qualities do prevail.  My manger understands that I may not be spending the rest of my life in Anti Money Laundering, so he has been giving me good projects that will develop transferrable skills.  I am one of the busiest of the five interns here and definitely the one with the best relationship with my manager.  My projects make a real difference here and I get to work with people around the world. 

My sights are set on a front office job.  The lack of stress here gives me the feeling of underachievement.  I attended my first class at the Investment Banking Institute, a financial modeling class run by ex-bankers, last night.  The first class was very enjoyable despite the fact that it extended my day substantially (left my dorm @ 8 AM and got home @ 11 PM).  The class was intellectually stimulating, which was refreshing after a particularly slow day at the office.  I’m looking forward to the coming sessions and getting to know the instructor.

Week 3

I made some serious progress in week 3:

 I began nagging my manager for more work, and he ended up dropping a huge project on me.  I don't know too much about it yet, but it seems like I'll be doing some project management for a really influential change in the department that I'm in.

Along with a big work addition, I finally began reaching out to people beyond those that are in my office.  I emailed one of our speakers, who is a very important person, and he got right back to me and set me up with a colleague of his. His colleague, Wei, was very excited to talk to me and I was able to get a good grasp of what his department does.  I plan to continue reaching out to people in other departments to learn more.  Everyone seems to love to tell others about their job, and they are even willing to take time out of their day to tell a measly little intern about it.

Two Weeks

I've reached the two week point in my internship.  The beginning was slow, I'll admit that.  There was a lot of learning that I had to do before I could start doing things.  I'm still learning tons every day, but now I have enough of a base to be useful at the office.  I actually have a feeling that I am contributing to the team I'm on. I'm in touch with people around the globe and I have been collaborating with them already.

I'm pretty sure I know what Anti-Money Laundering is now, but the more I learn the more I realize how much I don't know about the business.  Either way, the past couple weeks have brought a lot of learning and optimism about the months to come.

First day at 388 Greenwich

After arriving at 388 Greenwich Street at 6:30 AM this morning (a little early, of course) and leaving around 6:00 PM, I still have no idea what I'll be doing in my Anti Money Laundering group.  The first day was designed to be an introduction to the 10 week summer program for all the summer analysts.  We began with all of the summer analysts in every group within Citi waiting in the lobby and were soon ushered upstairs for a pep talk in a huge presentation room.  A few facts were presented about the group of interns that were in the room, and it really is an impressive group of people.  The rest of the day was a blur of PowerPoint presentations outlining Citi and the different groups within O&T.  At the end of the day, most people met with their managers and learned a little about their job.  My manager had contacted me previously explaining that he would be away all this week, so I took the time to meet some of my fellow interns.

I'll have to be at work in Long Island City tomorrow at 9 AM in business casual attire, but that's easy after arriving at the Tribeca location today before 7 AM decked out in a suit.  I'm looking forward to beginning in AML and meeting the people I'll be working with.

MD

Thoughts of May 31st

Hello, my name is Mike DeFeo.  I'm neither a "blogger" nor one who reads blogs.  Jill from Columbia CCE seemed pretty excited about the idea of reflecting throughout the summer on a blog, so I'll humor her for the next couple of months and try to post updates throughout my internship at Citigroup.

I start work on Monday, and quite frankly I have no idea what to expect.  As an engineer, business clothing has never been my forte.  Nonetheless, I managed to drag my sister out with me to tell me exactly what to buy and advise me what summer attire in the finance industry is like.  I'll be showing up at the office on Monday with a decent (almost complete) set of clothes, my passport, and zero expectations.  I interviewed with the person who is my future manager and I have been in touch with him since.  I would be much more concerned about my first day and lack of expectations if I didn't already have a good experience with him.

I've been fortunate to be paired with a Columbia alumni mentor.  His name is Patrick, and it seems that we have more in common that I had originally imagined we would.  I look forward to building our relationship and squeezing every possible bit of wisdom out of him that I can.  I have a general direction and some well defined interests, but I don't know exactly how to translate them to my life yet.  Hearing about Pat's experiences will surely help me understand possible paths for my future, if nothing else.

As for now, I'm making sure both to prepare myself for the coming ten weeks and to enjoy relaxing at home before I move into the city in two days.

Until next time,

MD