To think it’s been a month; life really moves quickly here in London. I don’t have a hard time believing that, as I’m keeping busy with 4 classes and an internship 4 days a week. Currently I am interning at a place called Buckingham Futures, an environmental health focused recruitment firm in Edgware, all the way out in Zone 6 of the London Underground system. At Buckingham Futures, I spend most of my workday assisting the team in sourcing candidates to connect to jobs that are hiring around the UK in the environmental health sector. In the UK, many of these environmental health officers are able to work in multiple places with differing focuses; it is not uncommon for someone to live in Wales and travel to London to work, doing things such as building or restaurant health inspections. Because this industry is such a departure from my studies, my internship challenges me everyday to learn about an aspect of the UK job market that I never had expected to learn about! It really is quite a far cry from my major, finance, and while I don’t spend my day going through balance sheets as I had expected I would, I do keep busy manning the phones!
The long days at the office are made easier with a fun and supportive cast of characters around me. While I am the only person in the office making calls all day (often going to voicemail!)I work closely alongside my coworkers as we all share a space. This helps lead to lively conversations in which I learn much about life in a UK office. Everyone is very respectful, but also not afraid to challenge one another on personal beliefs, which I believe makes everyone feel more equal in the workplace and improves the dynamic.
Outside of the internship, I have also been able to send a lot of time exploring London, at times with my classes. My international finance class has been superb; the instructor, Dr. Kenny Tang, has decades of experience in various facets of finance as well as teaching. He’s a lot of fun, friendly at all times, and every class enjoys sharing “biscuits” with everyone. Recently we took a trip to an office building called Horizon 22 to visit the observation deck at the top, 912 feet above London, before touring the Bank of England museum. The observation deck was impressive, with sweeping views of the area for miles. The Bank of England museum was extremely informative as well, taking us through the Bank’s nearly 600 year old history! But easily my favorite thing Dr. Tang has been able to impart on us, apart from his teachings, the opportunities to connect with the financial world of London outside of our curriculum. He’s always informing us of various free opportunities to sign up and network at, sending out emails of events at places such as the University of Chicago’s Booth school of business management’s London campus, or the Isle of Jersey’s finance funds seminars they host. Recently I was able to not only tour the University of Chicago Booth’s building with other people interested in their MBA program, but also sit in on an accounting class taught by none other than Haresh Sapra; the class was incredibly informative as he went over the intricacies of leasing accounting whilst interjecting humor into the lesson. Following the lesson, they informed us we could stick around for a talk led by the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, on the state of efforts to stabilize the economy. The following night, I returned to the University of Chicago – Booth with Dr. Tang to attend a talk by Stephen Kaplan on private equity, followed by a networking event. Safe to say, I really scratched an itch that I’ve had to delve deeper into my finance studies after answering phones all day.
