Students' diaries
Lydia Gerges completed her work placement at AMV BBDO. Lydia is in the sixth form at Kingsbury High School at the time of her internship. She obtained 4 A*s, 6 As and 1 B at GCSE.Lydia's Diary
21 August to 1 September, 2006Day 1
I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for my first day at Abbot Mead Vickers BBDO (AMV for those in the know) and made my way to Baker Street. Before I begin my tale I will enlighten you about AMV. Abbot Mead Vickers is the world's largest advertising agency, whose clients range from Motorola to Guinness and almost everything else in between. And so back to my tale - I anticipated that I would get lost so made sure I left 10 minutes earlier. Oh how right I was! After initially walking the wrong direction, I eventually found AMV, and with 10 minutes to spare. I told the receptionists who I was there to meet, and after 10 or so minutes Kate Tweed, the head of recruitment, came and met me. She gave me a tour of the 7 floors of AMV, and then took me to get my login details, and then to my desk. I met the team I was going to be working with and they work on the Camelot (The National Lottery) account. And so my first day began. I was sent down to help someone who works on the Sainsbury's account, and my task for the day was to find pictures of cars, car accessories, music bands, logos and brands for a presentation. So I eagerly went back upstairs and began my search on Google. It was a very fun and amusing task, and the person I helped loved my findings (which ranged from pictures of bright pink cars to 50 Cent). Went back to Camelot and did lots of different admin tasks and then came the end to my first day at AMV. I went home excited and curious about what the following eight days would have in store.
Day 3
I was given a very exciting task to do today -- to come up with a Press Advert for The National Lottery to be printed in the Saturday papers. My brief was that it had to use the lottery balls and related to the up and coming bank holiday. After four attempts, my fifth attempt was successful. One of the account managers loved it and took me to one of the Art Directors who also liked it. At this point I was very excited at the prospect of something I designed being in the National Press. Unfortunately, Camelot (the client) decided they were not going to use an advert in the Press that weekend. Nonetheless, it was still a fantastic feeling to have an advert I designed (albeit my drawing is horrendous) to be acknowledged by an Account Manager.
Day 4 & 5
I was approached by an Account Planner and asked if I would risk my life in helping with a task. I laughed and agreed only to find out he was being serious. For the next two days I went with him, and I was responsible for filming two crazy drivers, one had 11 points on his license, and the other an ASBO. I sat in the back seat and filmed them drive, luckily they didn't drive like nut cases which somewhat defeated the purpose of the filming, but I was later assured that the footage was perfect for the presentation. On the whole two very fun, interesting and unique days.
Day 7
I was emailed by those who work on the Sainsbury's account (oh yes AMV make the wonderful Sainsbury's adverts that we all know and love) and was asked to meet them. On doing so I was then asked to do some shopping for an advert -- so all the products that you see on the advert that airs on the 13th of September were bought by yours truly. Now I absolutely hate food shopping but I think this has converted me (which my mum will be pleased to hear). I took myself down to the Sainsbury's at Finchley Road and had to purchase twelve different 'Taste the Difference' (new labeling) products and five of each. I really did enjoy buying them, although I must admit I picked them based on how aesthetically pleasing each one was. At the check out I was asked if I was opening a restaurant and had to explain why I had five of each item. Once again, AMV gave me something extremely fun and different to do.
Day 9
Was asked once again to go out filming, but this time it was stopping people in the street and asking them about the 'think' logo. At first, I went with the Account Executive and we asked six people; then after an hour and a half I was left to my own devices and had to find a further eight. Now this was a daunting thought at first, but I soon got used to it. I somehow (on one or two occasions I was a bit cheeky and walked into shops) found eight people in just over one hour. It was actually interesting and somewhat amusing to hear people's responses. Went back to the office and did further admin for those on Camelot and thus the end of my penultimate day.
Day 10
All good things come to an end, and so my two weeks at AMV reach their finale. I cannot express how sad I am that it is over. I only wish I could stay for a while longer. I met a creative team (those who come up with the adverts) today and they were incredibly helpful. I expressed an interest at the beginning of my placement to meet a creative team and it was set up. Working at AMV has definitely made me want to work in advertising after I get a degree, and I know being in a creative team is the job for me. Sadly, it is still a long way off and a lot of hard work is involved. I end by saying that I absolutely loved my time at AMV and would love to go back. I would definitely recommend an internship and would 100% recommend doing one at AMV.
Natalie Silver completed her internship at M&G Investment Management. Natalie was a student at JFS School, Harrow, at the time of her internship. She obtained 9 A*s/A and 1 B at GCSE.
Natalie's Diary
31 July to 11 August, 2006The Big, Scary World Of Investment Management
(you would think!)
For me, a 17 year old inexperienced Sixth Former studying in North London, arriving at the doorstep of such a prestigious international company as M&G (who, by the way, only manage over £126 billion of funds!), you could say that I had reason to feel slightly apprehensive.
I was to undertake a two week placement with the objective of gaining an understanding of the company and experience the investment cycle. At first, I felt as if I was a small fish in a big pond with only limited knowledge from studying Year 12 Economics, but after spotting friendly faces amongst the, at first, frightening business suits, my worries receded.
I was introduced to the person who was to be my supervisor for the first week, Jon. During that week I worked within the Settlements, Transaction Processing and Entitlements departments. There I covered unfamiliar areas such as Fixed Income (i.e. the trading of bonds such as gilts or corporate bonds), and learnt to understand terms in context such as risk, coupon, maturity and yield. Another area was Equities where I was immersed with information about unit trusts and UK equities, and put my learning into practice when introduced to hi-tech systems such as Quasar and Gemini (which both sound like the names of video games making me feel more at home). Their real purpose was to input trades from brokers and match them whilst checking for queries.
One of the more interesting areas was dealing with dividends, a source of income from shares. However, prices can move sharply depending on the value of equity markets, but if the share does well the shareholder could receive a higher return than from owning a bond. What fascinated me about equities was that they are such a risky business and fund managers (investing on behalf of clients) require specialist knowledge and have to plan one step ahead otherwise they could lose out. To prevent massive amounts of money being lost, restrictions are in place as to how many shares can be held, and you could diversify your portfolio (thus spreading the risk) to have a combination of bonds and equities.
It intrigued me that huge sums of money could be involved in trades although no party actually had any investments to hold in their hands, reminding me of the board game Monopoly where a player can purchase houses with paper money.
In my second week I was under the supervision of the Head of Segregated Funds, Lee, and got my hands dirty, helping to arrange and dispatch monthly accounting reports to clients as well as receiving daily bank receipts which had to be designated to my fellow team members.
I was very excited to visit a fund manager and was very impressed when he had a modest amount of 5 computer screens in front of him! At the time of my visit news arose that a terrorist attack had been foiled. I asked how this would effect investments and was shown that share prices decreased whilst bond prices increased and that this was actually a good time to invest in bonds in the hope that prices will increase further.
Standing for Municipal and General Securities Company Limited, M&G was founded in 1931 and acquired by Prudential in 1999. To date the company employs 1,455 staff in London, Chelmsford, Berlin and Cape Town and service more than 830,000 retail unit holder accounts.
As said by Bill Gates of Microsoft, 'great organisations demand a high level of commitment by the people involved,' and this is why the company is rated the third largest retail fund management group in the UK. Employees went out of their way to accommodate me although the duration of my work experience was at the beginning of a month, an important time in the trading cycle.
I would like to say particular thanks to Jon, Lee and the Fixed Income team who sit squashed on the fourth floor. They made my two weeks a great experience and I hope to follow this up in the future in my choice of career.
Samir Patel completed his internship at Her Majesty's Treasury. Samir was in the sixth form at Kingsbury High School at the time of his internship. He obtained 2A*s, 3As, and 4Bs at GCSE, and was predicted to get 2As and 2Bs at A level.
Samir's Diary
31st July to 11 August, 2006.Before starting, I was extremely nervous and didn't know what to expect, but after started talking to Yasmin my nerves subsided. I was expecting to be greeted on my entrance by men in suits and cups of coffee; luckily the former wasn't there. Walking into the Learning and Development team, my first impressions were positive; there was a calm and welcoming atmosphere. Day one was well set out with a small induction and talk about issues such as security etc. In the afternoon, I was given the freedom to roam through the Intranet, which I believe was a great time for me to find my own way through the Treasury.
Working with Pete Thomas on the second day made me feel very comfortable, his calm manner made it easy for me to discuss my interests with him. The L&D team had organized a Summer Break Lunch, in which I talked to more members of the team, namely, Aileen, Sarah and Sanjeev. This I believe made me feel even more part of the team, and I began to understand what roles everyone fulfilled. The L&D team has a lot of diversity within it, which, coming from Kingsbury is what I have grown up with; it had cleared the misconception that only white people work in large institutions. In the team, whatever anyone's status, they all talked to me with interest, greeted me when I came in the morning and bade me farewell in the afternoon.
Day 3
Consisted of a visit to the Private Office and a tour of 11 Downing Street, both of which were fantastic experiences. The private office was a bit of a surprise as I expected there to be a huge desk with a big chair, but instead I saw baby toys and a slightly worn out desk! Nevertheless I had the honour of sitting in Mr. Brown's chair and taking a photograph of it. Immediately after this I, along with Yasmin, Keir and Sanjeev, were guided around 11 Downing Street. I had been very much looking forward to this and was not let down. What goes on at 11 Downing Street was explained really well and I had got an insight into the life of the chancellor. After the tour I was lucky enough to take pictures of myself in front of 10 and 11 Downing Street, which will help me to treasure these memories. All these trips had helped me create a relationship with the L&D team by giving us the chance to talk outside of the office about things not related to work.
Day 6/7
Were generally good. I worked with the recent graduates at MPIF and was able to understand what they did. In addition, I was allowed to use the Bloomberg system, worth around £20,000! Using Bloomberg, I undertook an exercise to find the exchange rates and also the value of the FTSE 100 before and after the rise in interest rates and decide whether the impact was measured or moderate. This was probably the most enjoyable part of day 6. During lunch I got to talk with other recent graduates about their roles. During this time I felt really comfortable working with MPIF as Andrew had introduced me to some graduates, and I was able to relate to their experiences of working at the Treasury because they were relatively new recruits. Day 7 was HMT Induction; we had various speakers come and talk; we did group work; and people were able to meet and work with colleagues from different department, thus forming the basis for ties between departments. However as I had already been inducted on my first day, some of the talks (i.e. H&S, Security) were slightly repetitive and I had lost a bit of interest.
During the morning of Day 8, I worked with L&D consultant Ruth Appleton. This was a very interactive meeting in which I was allowed to have an input. I believe this was a valuable experience for me because it gave me an understanding of how risk assessments are conducted. The risk assessment follows the pattern of foreseeing problems, then predicting their chances of occurring and their impact, and then finally finding solutions to mitigate the problem. From then on, I worked closely with Sanjeev and Keir in updating the learning management system, using Microsoft Excel. This proved to be a useful exercise in that it I got to refresh my knowledge of Excel and at the same time reduce the burden on Sanjeev and Keir.
On the whole, these two weeks have been invaluable. I never imagined working in such an institution. It has been a real eye-opener into the world of work. I have never felt out of place when working with colleagues such as Yasmin, Sanjeev, John and Keir. In fact, I will be sad to leave, but I believe I have now gained a better perspective on life and hopefully this will be to my advantage in the future. I want to thank Sanjeev, Keir, Sarah, Ruth, Aileen, Pete and Pat for helping this work experience to be a success. Finally I want to say a big thank you to Yasmin for making such a varied and in-depth plan for me and helping me to achieve a successful two weeks at the Treasury.