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