Exciting experience with steep learning curves, great supervision and passionate people

See what the interns have been up to in the past weeks in their last blog where they tell about their work, challenges and learnings at the FX desk, and with the Research & Risk Solution team – and share their thoughts about their summer internship on an overall, and why its’ been “an exciting experience” and “an excellent opportunity”. 

By Kirsti Sunde Midttun, Henriette Johannessen Drougge, and Jakob Longva Reiersen, Sara Holten & Frode Wilkensen

Kirsti & Henriette – joining Markets FX

We have enjoyed every minute of our internship in Markets LC&I Norway – including our last two weeks with the FX team at the trading floor in Oslo. It’s been a busy, very hands-on and educational experience, as well as fun and just great. 

During our time in FX, we were assigned a highly relevant case; to conduct an analysis to identify the key drivers influencing the depreciation of the Norwegian Krone (NOK). 

At the Markets FX desk, we engaged with highly skilled colleagues, gaining valuable perspectives on the future of the NOK - and much more. We have thoroughly enjoyed collaborating on this project, allowing us to leverage our diverse skills and expertise; with Kirsti's background in physics  and mathematics, and Henriette's focus on finance and investments.

To sum-up, we have really enjoyed our two weeks in Markets FX – and learned a lot. 

Sara, Jakob & Frode - joining Research & Risk Solutions

Going into the final sprint of our summer internship, the three of us have teamed up for our last two weeks’ rotation into the Research & Risk Solution team. Till now, we have rotated between LC&I desks individually; Sara has been at the LC&I Shipping and Securities Finance desks,  Jakob has rotated between Corporate Finance and Fixed Income while Frode stayed on with Corporate Finance.

We all three agree that we’ve been lucky to join the Research & Risk Solutions team, and our weeks here have been full of new insights and impressions. The team is a group of highly skilled and passionate people working with macroeconomic analysis, and they’re quite often quoted on their macro views in reputable financial media.

As we’re writing this, our period with the Research & Risk Solutions team is almost over, and we are preparing to present our final project to the team. A project which offered the opportunity to dive deeper into how big an impact the Net Zero transition, and the emerging use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will have on the economy, i.e. labour market, inflation and interest rates. 

The project is particularly interesting as we’re digging into two mega-trends which already are affecting our world, but will have even more impact in the world of future generations. So, it's been a quite interesting, educational and eye-opening project to work on together, and we look forward to presenting it to the team, and hear their feedback and expert views.

Interesting conversations and great supervision

Our time with the Research & Risk Solutions team can be summed up by a remarkable steep learning curve, interesting conversations and great supervision from Ole-Håkon Eek-Nielsen, Head of Research & Risk Solutions Norway, and Kristoffer Stjern, former intern, and now Assistant Analyst in Research & Risk Solutions Norway.

Also socially, we’ve enjoyed the past two weeks (as we’ve enjoyed the entire internship in Markets, LC&I). During our last weeks, we have also taken the opportunity to do some “desk-hopping” on the trading floor, observing how sales people within Derivatives Coverage and Fixed Income work day-to-day, as well as watched how traders within interest rates, bonds and FX operate. 

There is, for sure, a special vibrant and exotic atmosphere on the trading floor, full of exciting people and products. We’re going to miss it – the atmosphere, the people, everything.

An excellent opportunity

As per tradition, all of us interns have also attended the weekly afternoon Summer Academy. It’s a tailored program for us interns where a LC&I team presents their business area, and tell what they do, how they are organised etc. over some pizza and cold drinks. 

At the past two Summer Academy sessions, we were introduced to the Securities Advisory and Equity Sales teams. Afterwards, we went to Nordea’s sunny rooftop terrace for some drinks together with the respective presenting teams, where we were able to ask the teams more questions about work in general, their career journeys, and other philosophical life questions, before heading off to town together.

We all agree that this internship certainly has been an excellent opportunity to listen, observe and learn about the financial markets and how professionals in finance work. It’s been an exciting experience thanks to the many passionate and super skilled – not to mention welcoming – people we’ve met during our internship in Markets, LC&I.

Thank you all, for making our internship such a great and exciting experience.

If you missed the previous blogs from the interns, you can read them here: Interns come with high expectations, excited to learn, be challenged and have fun – so they do and “It's all much better than I could imagine” – meet our summer interns in Markets Norway.

You can find more blogs featuring interns, graduates and other talents working in Markets, LC&I and across Nordea telling about their work, career journeys and more on Meet our talents blog.