November 2, 2015, by Sunita Tailor
A Fish Out of Water!
This blog post was written by third year English and Philosophy student, Rishi Davda from the School of English.
Wells Fargo Bank!… Never heard of it? Neither had I, until I was lucky enough to carry out a work placement at, what I later found out was the world’s largest bank. It seemed strange to me that the world’s largest bank remained relatively anonymous in the UK. Nonetheless, I put on my best suit, polished my shoes and made the severely crowded 7am underground journey to Wells Fargo HQ in Central London. As an English student, whose only previous banking experience was spending hours staring at a bank statement trying to figure out where all my money went, I was intrigued and I must say a little scared to see what awaited me in the towering offices of Wells Fargo. Accompanied by 13 other fresh-faced interns, we were given an introductory tour through miles of glamorous corridors and constantly fluctuating computer screens. Seeing all this professionalism only further enforced my thinking that I was well (and I mean well) out of my depths.
Much to my surprise, some of my favourite summer moments were working at Wells Fargo. Well, as good as can be had when you are waking up at 6am and sleeping post midnight, but still pretty awesome. Spending time meeting new people lay to rest any worries that I would be the only arts student there. Banking is a real mixed bag. My mentor was a French and Spanish Graduate and a lot of the traders were actually Engineers. The high point of my time was meeting a very senior member of staff, whom the others almost bowed down to, and finding out he was an English Graduate. I cannot stress this enough, banking is not just about maths.
There are hundreds of departments in banks, ranging from legal to tax and investments to marketing. During any placement you will get a taste of what the company has to offer, and don’t be close minded. You may fall in love with a department you wouldn’t expect. I had a brilliant time in marketing, culminating in presenting a new social media outreach programme to some of the superiors. It was truly a brilliant experience that has presented a new possible career to me. I’m not saying I’m going to be a banker but, , it is definitely a sector that is worth a look at. I had an amazing time and met some interesting people from all over the UK and beyond, and would definitely recommend banking as a sector in which English Students can thrive… then again, we are good at everything!
[Featured images from:
http://www.iramarketreport.com/wells-fargo-stock-good-bet-for-retirement-investing/330/
https://www.wellsfargo.com/com/]
No comments yet, fill out a comment to be the first
Leave a Reply