Going back to school with an offer

10 weeks of internship passed by really fast! There's no better way to end this summer than having a return offer in my pocket :) even thought it would be great if I haven't dropped and broke my laptop in the last week.

I have certainly learned a lot through my internship at Citi. Just 10 weeks ago, I was completely new to financial service industry, new to the company structure, and had no idea how corporate tax works. I picked up everything from scratch, made significant progress on my project, and was able to deliver my finds during the final presentation to Citi finance controller and other finance executives.

 Corporate tax is definitely not one of my expertise or the area that I would grow into, but this summer experience taught me how to adjust to new environment, absorb new information quickly, and effectively communicate with my peers and managers. No one would be able to accomplish anything in a big corporation by himself/herself. Knowing when and who to ask for help/information is essential.

The best thing about this summer is that my coworkers and I become very good friends. We established strong connections not just at work, but also on a personal level. I was recommending dress brands and shops to my manager, and exploring NYC restaurants and food trucks with coworkers.

Now is almost time to go back to school. I'm very excited to see everyone and find out how their summer went.

Final thoughts- Never stop learning

-Hi everyone, I am one week away  to finish my internship, so this last blog may reflect some mixed feelings. Of course, I want to go back to business school, but as I’ve been saying before, my internship has been a great experience.  First, I had relevant and very interesting projects, second I have a great work-life balance that allows me to take advantage of NYC and third, New York itself, which is a great city to be in the summer with tons of free activities.

To wrap up my blog series, I am going to talk about the final presentation. During my last post I talked about a group project, do you remember that? Well, once we submitted the project, we needed to present to the top senior leaders of the organization, our managers and the rest of summer interns. Basically the auditorium was filled with around 50 people. The combination of the quantity and quality of the audience were factors that created a very stressful, and busy week. I am not the type of person who likes practicing presentations, but given the context, we practiced 6 times. The good thing, is that the official presentation wen very well. We were able to convey a heavy-data-driven project, and all our international accents with some fun examples, which helped to engage the audience and make the presentation more interesting.  Two big take aways of this final presentation: Again, a group works in which is important to establish roles and identify peoples’ strengths to divide better the presentation and set a positive tone, or simply manage the flow.

 Also, as international student, I would say that I had to step back and be humble to asses this US professional landscape, learn more things and be very open to feedback. Back in Mexico, I was so used to give presentations to big audiences and important people that I hadn’t had feedback for a long time ago, but in this context, I did, and it made me change my mindset for good, as I realized that there are always ways to improve. This conclusion was a constant during my internship. I got 6 years of work experience before coming to the MBA, and, at least for our group project, I was the one with more experience. I can say that this professional experience definitely  helped me to navigate Citi as a big organization, create good networks, solve business problems and approach the things that I was asked to do.

However, sometimes experience may cause less willingness to learn or take feedback. Nonetheless, I was impressed by the things that I learned from many people, as I’ve been saying, Citi is a very diverse organization, in every sense.  I found that I always had something to learn. Yes, I know, an MBA candidate has to be open to learn always new things, but the truth is that many times it is more a mantra than something that people take into practice. So, this summer I really practiced doing this, learning by doing and being very open to feedback with a true willingness to improve. Which in the end, may turn to be a good impression when feedback is internalized and put in practices. Not only for the summer, but also in general for a good professional life.  Finally, I think that by keeping this mindset, I am going to leverage more on my Ross classmates and learn the most during my last MBA year.

Last week

Last weekend in New York City, and last week of internship. Just this past week, all the interns gave our final presentation in front of 5 managing directors. We were given a specific company and had to make a pitch to the company based on what we think is the best strategy for them. The presentation actually turned out to be harder than I thought. Everyone in the intern pool was assigned into random groups, and that made meeting up really difficult. I work "early" hours compared to other interns who cover industries, and so, the other interns would tend to schedule meetings late at night and were prepared to stay till 4am since they could get in at 9am, while I have to get in at 7am. Aside from logistics, we also found out that not many interns have the technical knowledge needed. And it was extremely challenging to juggle the presentation with daily work demands; we could be meeting for 5 minutes and someone would get a call to work on something immediately. Overall, it was a mad scramble to pull the pitch together, but all of us managed to complete it and my group was pretty confident and proud of our pitch.

Looking back, every week was very different and very challenging. Everytime I start to get the hang of a certain project, a new project comes up and I have to pick up new skills and knowledge again. It was stressful at first, but I got use to having curve balls thrown at me constantly, and I stop getting all tensed up when something new comes up. It has been a very dynamic 9 weeks, lots of pressure to perform, lots of expectations, but that's what makes this industry so interesting. I definitely learned a lot about this industry - the culture, the work, the politics, etc. Even though it has been a very tough 9 weeks, I also like that I have been pushed to my limits and I've proved to myself that I could handle a high stress environment. I've met so many intelligent and extremely hard working individuals at work, and people that I meet in the industry never fails to impress me. The hours may be long, and I don't get much of a social life, but the dynamics of this industry never fail to attract me, and I will still choose to work in investment banking.

7 weeks into internship

At the beginning of this summer, financial service industry was a completely new area for me. In the past 7 weeks, through working and attending summer speaker series, I have learned so much about the industry. Digitization and urbanization are two of the biggest trends impacting people’s life. Financial service industry has certainly evolved around these topics as well. The whole industry has invested billions of dollars to develop technologies that provide better, faster and cheaper financial services. Financial institutions will continue making investments in technology in the future, and technology will continue shaping the industry.

Few years ago, Citi redirect its strategy to promote responsible finance and to focus on its core business. Through my work at Citi tax, I can certainly feel these changes going through the whole organization. There were many successful spin-off transactions during the last 2 years. They are part of the execution of Citi’s strategy to get out of the areas that are not in line with the company's strategy so that we can focus on customer and services related business. These spin-off transactions are also a result of higher liquidation and capital requirement in financial service industry after the 2007 financial crisis. Banks started to act more conservatively, and authorities are trying to figure out better ways to guide the industry.

In terms of company culture, Citi promotes diversity and encourage employees to gain exposures by taking positions in different functions, products and regions. I was amazed by the level of mobility and the amount of transitions people could make within Citi. Lots of people that I have talked to have taken advantage of Citi’s global representation by taking international rotations. Their exposure to different circumstances and challenges not only provide them the full-picture view of the organization, but also enable them to bring the best practice together, and come up with innovative ideas.

Diversity, Exposure, Cooperation and Work-life balance.. Loving NYC

Hello friends. This was my 7^th week , one more week down in my internship at Citibank., so I have 3 more to go. This was a veeeeeery busy week, for me that I really care about work life balance, I can say that the past days were the only in which I really had to stay late. This week was about working in a group project, which basically is solving a business issue for a division that is not familiar to the team, and working with 7 people. It may sound easy but it wasn’t. The big challenge was to deal with so many people in this team, so I had to go back to my MO classes and take many useful tips. 

Another thing that happened this week, was our speaker series with Vikram Pandit Citi’s CEO. Needless to say that it was great, very smart guy who was born in India, and very down to earth, even charismatic. Which takes me to the first topic of today, the company culture. Which has three major components.  First, diversity across divisions and business units. It is very natural to see people from everywhere interacting with each other. Which make sense as they are know as the global bank. Citi is not the biggest bank in US, nor in the world, but is the only bank that has presence in more than 180 countries. Hence, diversity plays a critical role and you see this in all different levels. A CEO who is from India, another who is from Mexico,  directors from UK, Venezuela, Italy,  China, and you name it. For me it has worked very well, as being international student, you feel that you are in a very open space where they are willing to promote and develop people from outside of US. 

Another important component of Citi’s culture, is it openness with senior management.  This speaker series with our CEO is only a good example, but we’ve had had this type of thing with other very senior leaders along the summer internship. Twice per week to be more precise.  This exposure not only has helped to understand other areas of the organization, but also to get worthwhile tips about personal and professional development. I found this very relevant, as in my previous work someone told me once. “In a company it is not only about delivering and working hard, you have to develop leadership behaviors and get exposure from senior levels” The latter helps not only to learn, but sometimes it may connect you with someone who share your background.  Another aspect that I have enjoyed so far, is the cooperative culture. It is important to note that I work in consumer banking, whose culture may vary from Investment Banking and Sales & Trading. Departments that are also part of Citi, but that require more daily hours, which changes the dynamic of the work. 

Well, as I was saying, in consumer banking it is very common to work in cross-functional teams, and being evaluated by your pers. This two things push the cooperation among team-members, as you know that everyone needs from everyone, and that your rating or the decision of hire or not hire will depend on the evaluation of your teammates. I enjoy working and interacting with people, so it works for me. However, it may be people who like more the individual work. But as I said, there is no good or bad, the only important thing is to understand, and look for the right fit. 

So far, I have had a great experience at Citi, and I love that they foster these three things on Citi’s culture: Diversity, openness with senior leaders, and cooperative teamwork. And probably, I will add another component that creates a good environment, good work-life balance. Here In NYC I ‘ve had the opportunity to read, work out, work, and go out on a daily basis. Which at least for me, is a great experience. This is it for now; I hope you have enjoyed my stories so far; I will be posting soon my last one. See you until then.

Miguel

You have to love New York

Time flies! I’m already half way through my internship! On Wednesday, I had my mid-summer review with my manager and HR. My project is right on truck; and ready to move to the next phase on Monday. I’m so grateful that my manager has been very supportive during the past 5 weeks. Despite her extremely busy schedule, she made sure that I can attend all summer speaker series and training sessions, and worked out my project schedule round it. One thing that I feel is very important to be successful during the internship is being independent and self-efficient. Since my internship is based on one big project, there is not a typical day of work. I manage my own work pace and keep my manager informed of the project progress.

Besides working on my project, I have also been learning about other areas of Citigroup through net working with other interns, and my junior and senior mentors. However, because the first phase of my project was mainly done silo, I feel I haven’t put enough effort into networking and getting to know other FMAs. That is one of the things I intend to work on during the next five weeks.

Life in New York City has been amazing! There is always so much to do. Lots of my friends in NYC are investment bankers and consultants. Because of their irregular working hours, it has been hard for us to make get together plans ahead of time. However, this doesn’t stop us from enjoying the city at all. No matter how late it is at night, we can always find great places to go. From rooftop lounges to beer bars, from museums to riverside parks, the city offers everything to its residents. Outside Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn also offer great additions to the city life. This past Sunday, I went to Prospect Park in Brooklyn for NYC Food Truck Rally. Spend a few dollars, you can get amazing kimchi tacos, exotic ice-cream or delicious grilled cheese : )

Networking is actually part of the job

Hello, this is me again. This time I am going to talk about networking in the office. Has been 5 weeks already of my internship, and as we have been advised in school, networking is very important at Citi, as at any other company.

The good thing is that Citi also knows this, so they foster networking among people in the organization. Even, for my first week, I ad already a mentor assigned. Every intern has one, so this mentor may help you to answer all the questions that you cannot ask to HR, and help you introduce to new people. She, my manager, and my teammates have been the main sources to be introduce to more people. And it started naturally, since in order to understand the projects or the landscape, it is important to meet with many people, and those people will refer you to other group, and so on an so for. Also, I reached out the people who interviewed me, and they also gave me more contacts. Now I have a list of people that I cannot find the time to schedule meetings with them. I would say that in this 5 weeks I have been successful at creating networks within the organization. Part of it has to do with my genuine interest of knowing more people and understand what they are doing. Which in the end will give me a better perspective to decide in case that a job offer comes. People have always different roles, backgrounds and experiences with the companies they work for, so networking for me is helpful for both understanding the organization and gaining future sponsors within it.  Since Citi foster this, as I said, it is relatively easy that you can meet with senior people, and in the end, those are the people who can give you a better advice. Another piece that has been critical, is come prepare to those networking meetings. It is like the process that OCD gave us for recruiting. First send a short e mail explaining who are you and you motives, schedule a meeting. And come prepare for it. Understanding your objectives and of course, have clear and smart questions. That is the way  they automatically will say. “You should meet x” so there you go, you have another contact. Ok, that’ it for now. I’ll keep you posted. 

A well-rounded work plan

HI Everyone, it has been a while since my last post. And time has gone pretty fast for my internship; I cannot believe I am halfway already. This is my 5 week out of 10. Currently, after having several discussions with my manager and teammates, I came up with a defined work plan. It was not surprising for me that some thing will be ambiguous, and that I would have to step up and starts my own work plan. By saying this I don’t mean that they didn’t know what I have to do, but I am saying that they were not 100% sure about what would my contribution look like. Which doesn’t surprise me, as in my previous work at P&G things were like this, but I can say that it is a much better way to learn things and develop different skills. It is like a consultant job, without the same pay but certainly without the same working hours. Well, to make the story short, I realized that I could match my personal objectives in terms of skills/experiences to gain, and what Citi needed. So I came with 3 different projects a) Develop a competitive analysis of different potential suppliers b) Develop the template/framework of the steps to follow in order to close a deal of a new business model, with the top retailers of US c) Asses the social media landscape and come up with a strategy that differentiates Citi (and its new business model) from other companies. It took me several meetings and talking with different people to gain sponsors for my projects. Citi, as any other big organization, works a lot with this corporate dynamic of aligning different stakeholders. However I am very satisfied with the outcome, as I will build experience in strategy, business development and social media. Now, in order to get things done, I built a timeline, develop and aligned different frameworks to approach each of the projects, and committed my deliverables, in a very specific way. For example, in the social media I will deliver an executive summary in a word document, and a deck with all the insights, next steps and success criteria. This may sound logic, but when it comes to people, everyone is different. I learned in my previous job that it is better to over communicate and set the right expectations, using measurable criteria. (Similar to the START concept we revised at MO 503). It happened some times before that if these things are not stated, there may be some miscommunications. The other thing is that in big companies, that work as matrix organizations, you never know when a person working close to you moves to a different role or simply leaves the company, so it is very important to have a clear work plan.

That’s it for know, but I’ll keep you posted.

Taste of Taxation

Till two weeks ago, I could never image myself working on a taxation project. I thought taxation was a necessary evil, something corporations cannot avoid; there was no creativity involved in the work. However, meeting my manager completely changed my view on taxation.

My manager has spent her last 20 years working in taxation field (both public and private sectors), and has great passion for her work. She sees taxation as a constantly changing field. Thus, finding the best practice in taxation never ends. Given the Financial Management Associate program goal is to provide us an overall understanding of all 6 Citi corporate finance functions, my manger started our conversation with stories of tax involvement in corporate entity spin off process and M&A project.

My project specifically involves the 52 billion dollars Deferred Tax Assets that Citi has on its balance sheet. Recent financial service industry regulation changes require banks to have more capital on its balance sheet. Traditionally deferred tax assets were treated as part of bank’s capital. However, under Basel rules, only 14 billion out of the 52 billion DTA that Citi has can be classified as its capital in Basel calculation because of the contingency nature of tax assets. This makes trueing up tax balance from legal entities to business units an urgent task.

Besides working on my taxation project, I also gain insides of Citi’s business operation as the summer speaker series and leadership training continues through the summer. Earlier this week, Prof Scott Snook from Harvard Business School came to Citi talking about finding a sweet spot (amount what a person’s good at, other’s appreciation and personal passion) as an import factor of becoming an effective leader. To ensure I can learn as much as possible from the internship experience, my manager also includes me to other business meeting outside of my project.

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.

My first two weeks in New York Citi- Part 2 of "from CPG to Banking"

Hello everyone,
Has been a while since I posted my first blog. You may think that the title of this  second one is a miss spelling, however it is not. I just didn't want to be one more person talking about Citibank, as I just saw that my intern classmates have been very active.
The ver first week went by very quickly. We had a trainning during the whole week, along with some networking events and an speech of the CEO of Citibank consumer banking division, Manuel Medina Mora, who happens to be a mexican that has a long career in the banking industry. This conference, was just the cherry on the cake that confirmed the things that I am enjoying at Citibank. First. Diversity of backgrounds, and second,  approachable senior management. As I consider both relevant elements when it comes to build a strong organizational culture. Also, they come very useful when evaluating whether I see myself  working for Citi in the future, because, from an international student perspective, I would not like to be working in a place in which thediversity in background is not appreciated. Another thing that I have enjoyed from the program so far, is the caliber of the interns. I can tell that I've had interactions with people from all of the  top 15 business schools. Which has been a great opportunity not only to expand my network, but also to realize that The University of Michigan, Ross Business School, is very well positioned in the MBA market. Now, starting my second week, I have to confess that  going back to work after eleven months, is like working out, you need to keep up with your condition! It is not a big deal, but it is something that needs to be practiced again. Additionally, as it has been for other classmates, when  defining deliverables, it is not as easy as I had thought. I realized that my project is more ambiguous than I though, as it has to do with launching a new business model, which deals with increasing revenues, strategy and marketing. As a result, there are some roles that are still unclear in my team, but, the upside of this is that I am having the opportunity to work in something entrepreneurial, something very rare in a big organization like Citi. (You may have seen that also Citi just turned 200 years, and it is just  starting the 3th century of life ). The project has been great to leverage on my previous MAP experience as a team-member and on my Strategy classes. So far, I can tell that the project has exceeded my expectations, even though I still have to figure things out and develop many frameworks to deal with the unknown of a new business model.
I will keep you posted.
Miguel

First week at Citi

Citigroup’s SFMA is a well-organized program. I received the summer position placement document from Citi in mid-May. It includes 8 positions within the global finance area. Each position came with description of its department, tasks, requirement and perspective. Later on, I found out that there were only 8 of us in the SFMA program, and each of us got placed in a different team. It is a bit sad that we will not see each other much after the training week, but this structure provides us a way to broaden our network within the company, and learn as much as we want about other teams.

The first week started with presentations given by CFOs of the Institutional Clients Group (ICG) and Global Consumer Banking (GBC). It was as much a presentation as a conversation. We all had plenty of time to ask CFOs questions. During the week, directors and controllers of Treasury, Financial Planning & Analysis, Corporate Accounting policy and Tax gave us a brief introduction to their team. The managing director of Treasury reminded us that the Key to financial management is not getting into details of rules and regulation reform, but to think logically and act ethically. We also had breakfast chats with our junior and senior mentors. Everyone I have met so far at Citi is extremely knowledgeable and supportive. Through out the summer, we will participate in speaker series from top executives of Citi.

In addition, this year is the 200-year anniversary of Citigroup. As members of Citigroup, my colleagues and I went out on Thursday to paint a local community park. It was a great time to meet people from consumer banking group, and give something back to the community.

2 weeks in NYC and counting!

It's crazy how fast time goes by in New York City. I've been here for 2 weeks now, and I have not had a day when I have nothing to do. I came here 2 weeks ago, and spent everyday of the first week learning to get around the city, find places to buy groceries, etc. Going from Michigan to Manhattan, I was really overwhelmed by the amount of people I see everyday, and I'm still not used to getting stuck in a crowd almost all the time. Interestingly, just by walking around the city, I've bumped into classmates from Michigan - glad to see that many Michigan students are having great internships in the city! After a week, I still did not get to see even half of the city. But at least I know where I can go to get what I need :)

This week was training week for my internship. It was an intensive 5 day training of accounting, finance and learning how to use the databases that I will be using at work. I got to meet a good number of the people in the intern class, made some friends that I will hopefully be touch with, and got to see the floor I will be working at. I will be working with equity capital markets group this summer, and so far, I've only met my supervisors. They are really nice and have promised that we will be getting a great learning experience. I've also met the 5 other interns allocated to the group, and everyone seems to be bonding well and have plans to get together outside of work. I will be starting at my desk this Monday and because of the nature of my group, I actually have to get into work at 7am everyday, but I may actually get out at 7pm. That is actually not typical of investment banking, as many of you may know that bankers typically work till 12am or even pull all nighters. That said, it remains to be seen if I actually get off earlier. Overall, I'm really excited to get on the team this Monday and to meet everyone on the team.

Much to learn

Hi everyone! I'm Priscilla, a BBA junior and I'll be interning at Deutsche bank this summer in the corporate finance division. I will be a summer analyst doing investment banking work. Currently, I'm still waiting to hear back from Deutsche about which group in corporate finance I will be joining. I'm really excited for this internship and really hope to be selected to join my favorite group :)

There's quite a lot I'm expecting from this internship actually. I'm expecting to be pushed to my limits - challenging deals and tasks and long hours. Hard work aside, I'm also looking forward to meeting and working with the many great people that I've been talking to from recruiting till now.
A little background about myself, I came to Michigan from Singapore hoping to join the business school. But when I came here, I decided to try Actuarial Mathematics. I realized I didn't quite like actuarial jobs, and really wanted to give banking a try instead. After many months of hard work, I manage to get this internship with Deutsche and I'm extremely grateful to all the people that have helped me. So naturally, I'm very excited about the internship. I can't wait to finally get to understand life as a banker, work with the amazing people I've met, and learn so much more about the financial industry and the companies that Deutsche works with. And of course, I'm nervous as well. The grueling hours are well known, and I'm worried about burning out. Being international, I'm worried I might misunderstand the culture.
Worries aside, I'm excited for this opportunity and I truly believe this will be a great experience. Thanks for reading and I'll update on my progress at work soon!

From Consumer Goods to Banking

Hi, this is Miguel Martinez, mexican MBA at Ross.  This summer I will intern at Citibank, within the Consumer Banking division. Although specific projects have not been released yet, I know that I will be working for Credit Cards in New York City.

I am very excited as this opportunity represents a change in industry. I come from the CPG industry, where I  developed experience/skills during 6 years at Procter & Gamble. I did  sales, business development, strategy, in-store marketing, and category management. Now, I will have to leverage on  those experiences and the soft skills to have a successful internship.

Coming from CPG helped me to being able to try another industry, as currently, many companies are focusing on the final consumer to deliver a superior "experience" that engages current consumers (create loyalty) and attracts new ones (bring more consumers) by matching the benefits of the product with the needs of the specific segment. Something very common in CPG, but not very adopted in the rest of industries. Specifically in my internship, I know that I will have to understand the consumer and propose specific actions/changes in the value proposition of a given category of cards segment, while understanding the dynamics of banking industry. The idea of the program, is to start in this credit cards track for the internship, and then rotate or have different assignments as a full time. The  program objective (internship +2 years of full time) is that in the end, the person has a well rounded picture of Consumer Banking industry, and takes more important roles.

Having to transfer my skills not only to a new industry, but also to a different country, are the things that I see as the biggest challenges. Also, transferring skills is what makes me excited and at the same time makes me a little nervous, as I know that the culture in banking is very different than in CPG, not sure to what extent, but definitely I am anticipating to face different networking styles, and probably  different politic issues. On the other hand, I think that my knowledge about consumer behavior, and business acumen  will help me to navigate and have solid proposals. Besides, I already have a great test of transferring skills with my MAP (Enjoy, Chile), so I think that it will also help me to have a safe landing with Citibank.

How many weeks do I have left?

A couple weeks into the internship at Merrill along with living in NYC! Wow, I'm giving myself a pat on the back for that one. There is a park outside my dorm - it's the only thing keeping my sane. Don't get my wrong, I love the city. It's just I need some quiet time to myself to just chilax a little bit. I really have been learning a lot though, which is kinda why things are getting a little slow actually, but shhhh don't tell anyone! Since I have learned the fundamentals, it's on to the busy work. I really am liking the guys I am working with though. We sit very close to each other, so we really are a closely knit team. My manager has been out of town a lot of the time, which lightens things up a little bit even though he really is a great guy. Despite all of this, I am not sure working in sales with concentrated equity will be part of my career in the long term. After experiencing my first real job, being an entrepreneur sounds pretty good to me!!

-alex

Week One

Only a week of the internship at Merrill has gone by....9 more weeks to go! I was busy the first three days of last week with an orientation required for all interns. There were students there who will be working all over the country (the networking skills that Ross has ingrained in me definitely came in handy). To be honest, it was kinda dry but that's neither here nor there. After the orientation, on Thursday, I had the pleasure of meeting the actual people I will be working with this summer. My manager's name is Rich and I work with two guys named Alex and Rafael. They are actually all pretty cool and I feel like we are developing a great relationship. I work on a huge sales desk. There are no cubicles in the office, just one big open space where everyone sits....kinda cool. My particular group works with concentrated equity. Our job is to create different structured products around this equity that are tailored to a clients specific needs. For example, a client may want to hedge against downside market risk. We can create a specialized product using derivatives to help him/her do this. In effect, our clients are actually financial advisors who have clients with large equity holdings. I am in the learning process right now, trying to figure out the ins and the outs of this business. It is interesting to me and I intend to ask a lot of questions! My office is located in the World Financial Center right on the Hudson River. When I look out the window, I see the Hudson on one side and the World Trade Center construction  on the other. The other day, I decided to walk home. It was absolutely beautiful walking along the river and looking at the water and New Jersey City on the other side. I walked all the way back to my cozy NYU dorm. With two roommates, one being a Ross student, we are packed into one room. It's cozy though and I am enjoying myself. Other than that, NYC is a crazy place, from the high roller night clubs to the underground subways. But I love it all. It's a great city with a lot of opportunity waiting to be taken. That's all for now, talk to you guys soon!

Wandering Through A Concrete Jungle

...the summer will be filled with long hours, sleepless nights, the occasional night club, and reading subway maps. My name is Alex and I will be moving to the grid of New York City in 23 days. While I am not in my three person dorm room not much bigger than my own current room, I will either be busy with my newly found summer internship at Bank of America - Merrill Lynch or wandering around being sure to avoid dark alleys and homeless men with long beards on the streets.

So a little more about me...I was born and raised in Atlanta, GA into a family of six. I made my way through school in Atlanta with no problems, but my real passion laid in the game of golf. After receiving a scholarship to the University of Michigan (and following the girl of my dreams - although I don't like to admit it), I ended up in the Ross School of Business. Sounds great right? What most people do not know about me is that my interests lie outside of business. I am passionate about making things, creating things, and using my hands. As of now, I plan on going to graduate school with the hope of receiving a masters degree in architecture (I know I picked a great time, the summer after my junior year, to figure out what I'm interested in). No problem though. I know now that college isn't about what you major in or how much you learn, but more about growing and maturing as a person. Every day I feel as though I learn something new about myself, that's what makes college great!

To be honest, I have my doubts about my job this summer; however, I intend to make the best of it. Besides, it gives me a solid argument to convince my mom to pay for me to live in the city (it's not expensive or anything...!). But thanks for listening to my story about my somewhat average life, but then again, what in the world is the definition of average these days??

See you guys in the concrete jungle!!

-alex

Summer Internship in New York

Hi All,

My name is Matteo Dominianni, I am an MBA student at the Ross School of Business and I just finished my first year. I am going to Citigroup Global Markets Inc. this summer, I will be joining their M&A group as part of their Investment Banking Summer Associate Program.

My background is Corporate Finance. After graduating in Telecommunications Engineering, I worked for two major telecoms operator, both in Italy and The Netherlands, first in M&A and then in Financial Planning, Reporting and Analysis. I am very excited about my summer internship as in my previous work experience I saw an M&A transaction from the corporate side, and now I will see it from the banking side. I will leverage all the skills learned in my previous financial jobs combined with the ones learned at Ross in order to bring valuable contributions to the team.

Now that all the first year exams are done and MAP is over, my only concern is finding a place in New York City that is close to the office. All the people I talked to told me it's extremely important to find a place to stay that makes commuting easy. I know it's hard to find a nice place to stay, but all my Ross classmates are very helpful and I am sure I will find something nice soon.

Talk soon,

Matteo

Marie Claire Fashion Internship Summer 2011

Hello everyone! My name is Lisa Wang, and I just finished up my sophomore year as a BBA student. I'm moving exactly one week from now to New York City. This summer, I will be interning at Marie Claire Magazine. I'm a general closet intern in the fashion department, and I'll be working very closely with the Fashion Assistant and with several other fashion interns.

July 2008 Issue

Fashion interns are based in the fashion closet, working primarily with high-end designer samples. I will be responsible for sample trafficking, checking in and returning samples from PR firms and fashion houses, organizing the closet, and creating story boards, setting up for run-throughs, and packing/unpacking for photo shoots.

I chose to intern for Marie Claire Magazine because I am interested in learning more about the editorial side of fashion. I'm very passionate about the fashion industry, and I have already had two years of experience with SHEI Magazine, a fully student-run fashion magazine here at the U of M campus. I want to further my experiences and gain exposure into the fashion industry this summer, and what's better than to start with Marie Claire? Plus, who wouldn't love to wake up to an entire wall of Louboutins and Pierre Hardys??

Shoes Shoes Shoes!! - Marie Claire Fashion Closet

I'm very excited to begin my experiences with the Marie Claire fashion closet in couple of weeks. I'll be back in a few weeks to update you on my adventures in the fashion closet. Until next time...