Last month, I had the privilege to attend the First Year Undergraduate Women in Fund Management Insights Day program offered by M&G Investments – an investment manager business. The event was for students considering a career in Investment Management with members of the company sharing their experiences and insights of the financial world.
Held at the company’s main branch in London, the room was filled with ladies invited from different universities all over the UK studying various degrees.
The picture above was taken during one of the breaks between the one of the speakers’ session and the fourth round of simulation.
The second picture is the program schedule I received after my entry registration.
Significant events of the day
I think the most important experience was having the opportunity to do what employees do on a daily basis, through four rounds of simulation. We were given ten company names and four rounds of news, and we had to set the portion of the given budgets to be invested in each company.
Another valuable opportunity was having been able to talk to a couple of fresh graduates who are permanently employed in the company, and most of them kept telling us over and over again how opportunities like this will definitely help our career prospects and this definitely boosted my motivation. In addition, we got to hear from a panel of graduates coming from different backgrounds and working in different sectors of the company. For instance, Alison, one of the speakers who works as Investment Writer, came from an English Literature degree with no business background.
Top Tips
As a student striving for a bachelor degree with placement year, I was told to participate in as much work experience as possible. Aside from volunteering, this was my very first work experience session this academic year and I’m definitely very grateful for this opportunity. Despite receiving emails after emails of rejection letters from different companies, I was so hyped when I received the acceptance email from this company. If I were to give one last tip for all of you who are reading this article, one thing I would say is to not let those rejection emails discourage you.