JP Morgan: First Impressions

It is on this beautiful and sunny Friday that I end my third week at my JP Morgan Chase summer internship, and I only just found a lull in the day to write a little something about Newark, the state of Delaware, my program as a whole, and this incredible company that I am fortunate enough to be working for this summer.

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind, yet I finally felt as though I was in a place where I could honestly and accurately give my first impressions of my internship. Between learning everything there is to know about securities lending and investment services, and keeping up with a full social agenda with my fellow interns, the first fifth of my internship experience has been, what I would call, a great success.

Although it is still hard to watch the beautiful days go by from my corner cubicle on the third floor, living as a pretend adult for 10 weeks is actually pretty cool. Unfortunately, the idea that this could be my future makes me think that it could also be my demise. I am not sure that I am cut out for this life, as many other wanderlusters also feel. Everywhere around me, you can see that my goals and ambitions lie elsewhere. With my map of Europe and Mark Twain “Explore. Dream. Discover.” quote to my right, along with a few nick-nacks I picked up throughout my travels, and a quote about learning foreign languages in German by Goethe, this cubicle reminds me of the stories I hear from other adults about how they wish they had traveled, yet once life got in the way, all they had were the maps and travel quotes pinned to the walls of their respective cubicles.

Nevertheless, I, along with #### others located here in Newark, Delaware, shuffle in bright and early at 8am, and shuffle back out again at 5 every day. Although I am still unsure whether or not banking is really for me, my team in Account Management, as well as the other interns that I have become close to, keep me coming in every day, excited to learn about a business sector I came in knowing next to nothing about.

There are 50 operations interns in my program including myself and Kristen. Kristen is my lovely sorority sister who, luckily enough for the both of us, got the same internship, with the same company, in the same building, on the same floor. Twenty-four of us work in investor services in an assortment of different departments. I, for example, am in a department called Account Management. Essentially, I am responsible for the creation and maintenance of the Lender’s lending and the Brokers within the lending program. We handle everything from new and incremental client on-boarding, crediting instruction, agent lender disclosure requests, client/borrower set-up, trade and collateral requests, credit increase and decrease, etc. so basically, I, a 22 year old college student, help implement multi-million dollar trades from behind a desk. I’m probably trading your retirement fund as well speak. But don’t worry, you are in good hands. I am getting trained well!

The favorite thing about my experience thus far has been the exposure I have to people from around the world every day. Every morning at 9am, we call up and Facetime with our team in Bournemouth, England, go over the numbers from the day before, and update each other on the happenings and goals for that day. I send emails on a regular basis to Mumbai, and we often get requests in from Relationship Managers from all over Europe. My team primarily deals with EMEA, which stands for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, but we also coordinate often with APAC (Asia-Pacific) and occasionally with Latin America and other American brokers. As an international business major, it is incredible to see how far JP Morgan spans across the globe.

Consequentially, even with all of the international interaction, this does not exactly satisfy my hunger for travel, nor does it dull the envy I feel towards others that are gallivanting around the world. Regardless, I am still getting the same life revelations and self understanding that I would if I was 5,000 miles away. I’m still trying figuring out what it is I want to do with my life, what path I would like to pursue, and really what type of person I want to be, because although I never want to be defined by my job, I believe my career will have a large impact on the person that I become within the next 10-15 years and beyond. I’ve seen how easy it is to get lost in the 8-5 lifestyle, never to really emerge again, and to be honest, I see lost souls all over this office.

But, there are those who give me hope, both at the senior management level, and at the analysts’ level. This is a company that values mobility and furthering your career, as long as you are willing to put in the hard work. The culture is opening and friendly, which is something I never expected out of such a large financial institution. Majority of people tend to love their job here, which is incredibly encouraging, and management is always available to offer advice to young leaders. It still startles me to think that I work for one of the top financial institutions in the world.

Jaime Dimon, the CEO and practically religious idol to most that work around me, once said that there was not a bank on the planet that didn’t do business with JP Morgan, and after working here for two weeks, I’m pretty sure he is right.