I am Fathima Zarin Faizal, a fourth year DD CSP student who interned at Goldman Sachs in the summer of 2021. Before I begin, I would like to give some fair warning that this is not a typical quant intern story so if that's what you wanted, this is not it. It is pretty much a wandering anecdote about the events that lead up to me interning at Goldman Sachs in summer 2021 and a bit about the actual internship experience. On that sombre note, let's get into it.
The Beginning
Back in summer 2020, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I had this vague idea that I like research ish stuff centering around applied probability, ML and so on and will probably end up doing an MS but that's it. I was mostly considering apping for unis at that point. Pretty much everyone around me seemed very focused and knew exactly what they wanted, or at least it seemed like it then, what with the pandemic and all communication limited to the occasional "hey how's it going?". As the internship season loomed closer I talked to a bunch of seniors and batchmates to help me figure out a plan. The more people I talked to, university apping seemed way more uncertain back then because most labs and departments were pretty much shut down. I finally decided on trying for corporate interns because there's no harm in trying and even if I ended up not wanting it, it would at least be a good experience to go through that whole process. Also, if I do get a PPO, that would certainly get me out of being forced to sit for placements whether or not I go for an MS. And to be honest, I was pretty intrigued to see how a corporate setup functions given that all my previous work and projects had been on the academic side.
In terms of choices, I was pretty convinced I wanted just GS. I had talked to a senior who had worked with the investment banking division and I had really liked their project. I am not a big fan of CS, I consider it more a tool that I'll occasionally use when necessary to make my life easier than something I would spend the rest of my life working with, so in terms of day 1 companies, GS was pretty much my only choice for a quant internship. And if I did not end up getting this, there are way more opportunities down the line as I was keeping my options open anyway. Hence, on the preparation side, it was pretty straightforward for me. I just practiced a bunch of quant questions a week before the internship tests. A big shoutout to all the 2020 GS interns I contacted who had helped me in my prep. The interviewers were very nice people and overall it went good, they made it more like a conversation than anything. I was pretty confident that all the interviews had gone well and it felt good when I got selected.
Then came the question of whether I actually wanted it. And at that point I admit I just did not feel like spending months apping, or even waiting for core interns to come. All I wanted was to get out of all that, focus on my courses and projects and try to figure out what I actually liked. And thus I ended up confirming my selection.
The Middle
I was pretty happy about getting to leave the house finally, but of course, that was not to be. Also, over time, I started liking the projects I was working on in my department and developed a keen interest in it which lead to a whole lot of "god I made a mistake", which is how I went into my internship.
The Middle of The Summer of The Middle
They had cut short my internship to 6 weeks, which apparently they had done the previous year too so it started around a month into my summer vacation. Even though I went into it thinking it was all a mistake, it definitely exceeded my expectations. In general, everyone is up for a discussion on anything and ready to help you out in any way. I worked in the fraud detection team so it was a proper data analysis internship. They did a pretty good job of introducing us to the fast paced corporate world. There is always something new and exciting to work on. Even as a lowly intern, my work felt pretty important to the company's fraud detection policy that will directly engage with millions of customers. Even though I ended up deciding that data analysis is not my cup of tea, I had a good experience.
The End
The whole point of this wandering anecdote was to show how confused I was back then about everything. And that's okay, because no one has everything figured out. I think the major highlight for me over this time period was how I learned to shift my focus from thinking about the could-have-beens and concentrate on what's really important, the present and how to make the most of it. Every experience is important because whenever you try something new, you learn something from it and that helps you grow, which is the most important thing in my opinion. For anyone going through the intern season, it can get frustrating at times but the only way out is to just go through it and you will come out stronger at the end. So yeah, friendly reminder to get out there and do what you think you should be doing with your life :)