It is my first time to embark a journey on my own, to a new city that I have never been, to a new living environment that I have never experienced, to an overseas company to start as a financial analyst that I have never tried. All these “never” which I can far imagine compiled what I have experienced throughout this six weeks internship in Blocks Wearables Limited in Imperial College London. On the second date of my departure in London, I had already been invited by my supervisor and line manager to meet and discuss what I am going to do in the coming 6 weeks. I felt very thankful as they cared about my job duties even as a 6-week intern, but at the same time I also worried my performance is not capable to meet their expectation, especially I was told to modify the financial model of the company and help to extend the model for the B2C & B2B market.
I had found a stressful moment in the entire internship as the concepts and complexity were far out of I had imagined before the internship started. I had a hard time during my internship as I was required to understand a very complicated financial model without very solid financial modeling skills and concepts. Even worse, I had to amend the financial model and build up some assumption and reference on my own. Luckily, I understood the financial model at last by breaking them into pieces to digest, googling and not to mention the supervision from my line manager in the finance department.
At last, I insisted, I stayed calm and I went through it with my persistence, learning agility and the incredible supervision from my line manager and supervisor. I was able to meet all the deadline and finish all the work that my supervisor gives me under the timeline that they have set before the internship starts. I sincerely enjoyed the fruition that came to the end at last and I gained a lot, grew a lot throughout the overseas internship.
After this journey on my own, I understand myself far more than I suppose to know myself. I originally think I am an extrovert with an out-going personality, but I notice my introvert side throughout this journey. I prefer to stay in the comfort zone in somewhere that I am not used to be. I am not as out-going and talkative as I think, all of these aforementioned personalities only apply in Hong Kong and in somewhere that I am used to be. Therefore, I did not speak much during the internship and I could not assimilate the team in perfection. Besides, I thought I would not miss Hong Kong and my family much during the internship as I felt I was independent, but turned out I miss my family, friends and Hong Kong so much that I almost cried. Families and friends are my core values, which exceeds academic and career, but no deny I want to have them all. After this trip, I do not think I can perform a job which requires me to leave Hong Kong for such a long period of time as I think I cannot sustain it. I prefer to work and stay local with families and friends instead.
This journey also contributes a lot to my career in the future. I am glad that I am interested to pursue a career in the finance industry. As I find it more challenging and practical compared to other industry. Besides, the salary pay in the finance industry is a lot higher than other industry, not to mention those investment banking. Thus, I think working in the finance industry might be a good option for me.
