Freshman Internship Helping for the Future

Any tips to staying motivated for an unpaid freshman summer intern in BB PWM (UBS or Merrill) with no provided company perks whatsoever?

Typically I'm stuck doing work with the more junior Financial Advisors who pretty much have no influence (we're talking a few years out of college).

On top of this I'm the only intern there. I've interned before, but there were 5 other interns with me, so I could lean on them if I had any questions or wasn't sure about something, and having other college kids to talk to made it more sociable.

What should I do if I have questions and such? The FA's seem cool to talk to, but don't seem like the type who want to be disturbed too often with q's. Any advice for this or anyone with experience as a solo intern?

I get that for the short-term future there's not too many benefits. I'm doing this for the long-term. Does the Senior Financial Advisor have the power to influence his contacts and move me up to other divisions within the BB? (equity, IBD, S&T, etc...).

The Senior FA seems like a really nice guy and has been open when I've talked to him, so realistically could he make a call or send an e-mail to other divisions or at least paid PWM internships to help me set up my sophomore summer? That to me would make this internship worthwhile.

5 Comments
 

Become friends with everyone on your team. Play around with Bloomberg. Always ask what you can do to help. Be there for them when they're lazy. Always have a smile on your face. Do that and you'll have fun (maybe), get a recommendation, and a job to fall back on if all else fails in the coming years.

 

im currently in the same situation as the OP. One problem though. Im not even working under an FA or CA im working under "management". I have no interaction with clients at all and all i do is clerical work and answer phones. How can i stay motivated for this? Has anyone else experienced this with PWM? I feel like im the exception to an already horrible rated internship on this site

 

pwm is bs sorry to say so....use it as an opportunity to learn as much as you can. Take the time to do project on your own and try to impress the FA's. yes u have to deal with cold calling bs....but take the initatve to do projects on ure own....you may be given more responsibilties later on

Success is my only option and failure is not
 

pwm is bs sorry to say so....use it as an opportunity to learn as much as you can. Take the time to do project on your own and try to impress the FA's. yes u have to deal with cold calling bs....but take the initatve to do projects on ure own....you may be given more responsibilties later on

Success is my only option and failure is not
 

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