Credits - Ashita Sharma, B.Tech, Mechanical Engineering 2025

Where was your third-year summer internship? Domain, Company and City.

I completed my third-year summer internship in finance at Barclays, Mumbai.

Can you tell us about the work you were assigned during your internship? What were your responsibilities?

My role was as a Financial Analyst, but the work was more focused on global markets. Everything that happens in the world impacts the market. We were tasked with automating some BAU processes, understanding the activities of various desks like GCAS, GCSF, and liquids, and delivering numerous presentations. We also covered topics like the currency, policies, and economic conditions of Japan.

Describe a typical day at your internship. What tools, software or equipment you used in your work?

At 11 AM I left the institute, reached at 12:30 PM .I would have lunch and get started with the project. Go to bloomberg terminal and login. Had daily meetings with the stakeholders. Half of the projects with India, and the other with Asia, India, and team with Paris. Approach all the people from one specific desk match time with them. Had sessions with Barclays too. My major desk was Structured credit trading- Global Credit Asset and Financing Solutions.

What is something you didn’t know would be a relevant skill to have but helped you in your internship, or what was a skill you were surprised to figure out you needed for your internship?

Pretty much everything. Excel would be a nice addition, I’d say. Brush up your Python skills. You can’t survive in this world without coding skills, even in finance. It’s nice if you know about fixed income and the financial world in general.

Tell me about your transition to the city, accommodation(PG, hostel, rented apartment, relative’s), food and transportation. Was it compensated by the company? Did they help in any way?

Stayed in H-15, on campus only. So, the company didn’t help with anything.

Your personal goals and journey and how this internship shaped/affected the same.

I didn’t know much about finance. Had just done some projects and got through based on luck, which is what I thought initially, but later realized everyone was on the same page, so I eventually stopped undermining myself. Reading the news every day, understanding everything, and being able to conclude from reading stuff is important - happy to say that I was successfully able to fulfil that. Excel and Python and talking to people was not a personal goal. My goal was to figure out whether finance was for me or not, and now I know that.

How is the work culture like at the company?

They have a ‘best intern’ award. Trying to achieve that can be a little stressful. There are different kinds of people there. With different personalities. It feels amazing when someone who has 40 years worth of experience just sits down with you to discuss your personal life goals, they do that. They expect a lot from you as well though, in terms of hours put in and output generated.

Any memorable experience you’d like to share?

There’s so much to tell. I had 4 all-nighters there. They gave us a mess system thing, it was free-paying for by the company. They serve a Marathi chicken dish, Maharashtrians loved it. The entire intern batch went out to eat at a tower cafe called- CTC - Cooling Tower cafe, they had really good food. They played the same Taylor Swift playlist at the same time every day, other interns hated it, I loved it. For my final presentation, I wanted them to remember me, so I took a gamble. In my 10-minute presentation, I added 4 jokes. One of the directors was just looking at his phone during all the presentations, the only 4 times he looked up was during the jokes. No one else did that, and that actually landed well as I did get runner-up in the best intern award. I had 18 shots of espresso during the all-nighter I pulled before the final presentation day. Had 4 presentations scheduled on that day. Definitely NOT recommended- my hands were shaking at the end. Ordered a lot of food at the end of the day- lots of dessert, pasta, 2-3 drinks. This was the first time I had so much caffeine and so much food.

Any advice for people going to work in the same company? If you could go back, is there anything you would do differently during your internship?

Advice: Don’t worry too much about not knowing, no one does. Read the news. Be interested in that. News is just gossip if you read it the right way. Don’t waste time if you get an internship early as well, keep reading about finance. Definitely don’t take 18 shots of espresso in a span of 24 hours.