2 weeks of options

Week 2 of my internship ended! To recap, I am in the equity capital markets division and was specifically assigned to the convertibles desk in this division. Overall, this 2 weeks have been an extremely steep learning curve. I took classes on options, but those classes hardly prepared me for what I had to learn at work. There are many complicated products to learn and most of the work on this desk is modelling and pricing options. As I wasn't able to model and price at this point, my supervisor gave me many notes to study and constantly tested me on how much I've absorbed. It was very stressful at first, as I thought I would be working on assignments but instead felt like I've taken an upper level intensive class on options. I must say though, my supervisor was very patient with me. He knew I was struggling to understand the concepts and that options was not something I'm good with, but he took much of his time out to teach me. What was interesting was the way he tried to teach me. He never has a lesson plan, and would leave it up to me to study as much as I can while working on random assignments from other people in the team. His way of testing how much dedication I have to the team was to announce 5 minutes beforehand that he will be testing my knowledge. And so, I have to constantly make sure I was studying and reviewing my notes.

One day, he handed me a presentation on a certain product, walked me through the main points and then told me that I will be teaching this to another intern. After spending some time preparing notes to teach the other intern, right before I was about to teach, he brought in more interns, and said I will be making a pitch of the product to the interns. I was thrown off, did my best to pitch, though I must say it wasn't a good pitch. And that was one of the highlights of the 2 weeks.

I thought I had a great supervisor, albeit a tough supervisor. But I'm really grateful for his time and his dedication to teach me. I will be having multiple supervisors as I rotate through the division, and I'm excited to see the different styles of supervising that I will be experiencing.