Investment Banking

If you're a young woman working in investment banking, you just started as an analyst, and you're trying to get used to the job, the hours, and it feels like you're just trying to keep your head above water. I want to let you know that that is okay. And honestly, that is normal. Sometimes seeing videos on social media can make you feel like there's a disconnect from the lives that you're seeing other people live and what you're going through. And I just want to share more of what my first year experience was. I'm incredibly grateful for the experience that I had because I was able to work on a lot of live projects and with incredible intellectuals on my team. With that though, that meant that there were periods of time where I was extremely busy. I remember that I worked a month straight. We did have something called protected weekends, but protected weekends disappear if you're on a live deal and the team needs you to be doing work. Sometimes 100 hour work weeks are grueling and sometimes they're not as bad as they sound because you can have certain breaks or periods in the day which can help you get caught up on rest, other work, or just have a little bit of downtime. But when I was going through my first year and some of these really intense phases, like I have to admit, I was not speaking to a lot of my extended family, like my cousin, my mom, like I was really talking to my mom on a regular basis. A lot of my friends knew that I had kind of disappeared in this chapter of my life and was not able to catch up with them or talk to them as much as I wanted, figuring out a nutrition and a workout plan that fit the intensity of the job was not easy. I don't even think I figured it out in the first year. At many times, I felt like I was just trying to get from day one to day two, or day two to day three. I couldn't look one weekend out, I couldn't look one month out. It was just like, what can I do to get through this next hour or these next few hours? I learned a lot in that field. I would do investment banking over again. I've learned a lot from it and grown a lot from it. And I can look back at it and share a lot of advice and guidance to my younger self if I were to do it again. But I do want to share a different perspective that shows a different side of it and also validates those that might be struggling in this adjustment and just trying to show up every day and show up as their best.