I’m Daniel. I’m an off-cycle intern at a mid-tier investment bank in New York. I landed this gig after sending 78 cold emails and somehow surviving three superdays. My job? Do everything no one else wants to, and do it perfectly, without asking too many questions (but not asking too few either).

I show up by 7:30 AM, even though most people don’t trickle in until 8:15. I want to look eager. The analyst logs on and Teams messages, “You’re in early lol.” I respond, “Haha yeah just catching up on emails.”
There are no emails.

I start my day combing through yesterday’s materials. I didn’t work on them, but I open them anyway and pretend I understand what’s going on. The VP sent comments overnight. The associate’s already typing in the shared deck. I don’t dare touch it.

Around 9:00 AM, the analyst calls:
“Hey, can you sanity check the numbers on page 7?”
“Of course.”
I Google “How to sanity check numbers investment banking.” I cross-reference three tabs, panic slightly, and highlight everything just in case. I send back the file. The analyst says, “Looks good.” I save the chat like it’s a letter of recommendation.

A senior banker swings by my desk. “You free to help on a benchmarking slide?”
I say yes. I have no clue what benchmarking means, but I open past decks and start reverse-engineering what a “good” slide looks like.

By 11:30 AM, I’m pulled into my first client call — strictly as a silent observer. My job is to take notes, but it feels more like a live quiz. I try to figure out who’s who, what the deal is, and what half these acronyms mean. By the end of the call, I have five pages of notes and three follow-up questions I’m afraid to ask.

At 1:00 PM, I grab a cold wrap from the deli downstairs. I eat it at my desk while refreshing Teams and pretending to read a 110-page CIM. I get through 14 pages before my eyes glaze over and I switch to checking for typos in footnotes. 

At 2:00 PM, the associate calls and says:
“We need to scrub the buyer universe for healthcare services. Can you take a first crack?”
I nod. I don’t know what a buyer universe is, but I Google “Healthcare M&A strategic acquirers US” and start building something in Excel. I cross-check company websites, old CIMs, PitchBook, and anything else I can find.

By 5:30 PM, I send it over. The associate responds, “Nice start — few comments.” There are 37 comments. I go through each one and revise, then send it back by 7:15 PM.

“Looks good. Let’s show the VP.”
Translation: Now the real edits begin.

At 8:00 PM, I’m reviewing a deck with the analyst. He shares screen, edits five slides live, and asks,
“Mind cleaning this up?”

“Not at all.”

I cancel my dinner plans I didn’t have.

The team’s been nice so far, but no one tells you when to leave. You leave when they leave — or preferably after. So I stick around. At 12:45 AM, I send over the final deck with filenames perfectly labeled. I finally shut my laptop at 1:30 AM, praying I didn’t miss a footnote.