Merrill Lynch
Ben Winter, 2010.5
During my internship, I feel that I performed up to the expectations that were expected of me. Although I wanted to do more financially related activities, I played as a team member in the group and did daunting tasks such as comprising lists of clients for the financial advisors and preparing, labeling and stuffing envelopes to send out to new prospective clients. I was always on time to work and did everything that was asked of me to do. Moreover, I was able to successfully handle tasks that required more intellectual capability such as using Morningstar and sifting through transaction reports to find pertinent information. While at my internship, I was also able to create several important relationships that will help me if I ever want to enter into the private wealth management area of the financial world. I was offered a position for this summer, which I am unsure if I am going to take. Given the current climate however, I think that I may be forced to take this opportunity even if it is not exactly what I would like to be doing this summer.
The most important thing that I learned while at Merrill Lynch is that finance may not be the industry that I end up working in for the rest of my life. While I am still interested in finance, I definitely know that private wealth management is not something that I want to do. Thus, as I start applying to other internships, I have expanded my horizons to areas such as advertising and marketing. I never thought that I would be interested in those industries but recently I have felt a draw to them. Even though the people I worked with are very good at their jobs and are very intelligent, they really have no autonomy when it comes to executing moves for their clients. Everything that they do, they need to talk to their clients and they take a long time hashing things out. Moreover, they use a formula to choose what equities, bonds and mutual funds to invest in. They are associated with Merrill Lynch so that they can use the research and service that Merrill provides and ultimately it means that they do not need to do their own research or buying and selling. Instead they just put orders into Merrill Lynch New York and they do the trading for them. While this allows them to allocate more time towards client and also allows them to take on more clients, if I were to become involved in finance, I would want to be on the other end. I am interested in doing research and generating estimated values of companies. My next choice in the finance world would be to do the actual trading of stocks and bonds.
While at Merrill, I also learned a lot about my own ability to function in an office setting. While at Merrill, I made several relationships with people within my own group but also with other people on my floor. I was initially nervous about handling a full time job, getting up every morning at 6:45, performing well at work and making connections at the work place. At the end of my internship, I can say that I was able to handle all of these tasks very well and it was really nice to learn that I am capable of handling myself in all aspects of a professional work environment.
Overall, this experience was definitely a positive experience. Although I did not get to do all the things I had hoped when I first started, I still learned a lot about the industry. Moreover, I got to follow the markets and news everyday, which is hard to do at Middlebury. It is also something that I miss. Also, I received a job offer for the summer, which is a great opportunity given the current climate. Although I do not want to do private wealth management for the long term, it is still a foot in the door into the finance world. I learned how to handle myself in several different professional settings and learned a great deal about my own abilities and ambitions in life. Also, I decided not to go abroad as a junior and being away for just J-Term made me really appreciate everything I have at Middlebury College and I am really excited about being back for the Spring.
Contact the Career Services Office for more information on this internship.