On the road

So I’ll be moving back to the Netherlands by the end of August. Even though I hoped to stay in the US for a bit longer than two years, I didn’t manage to break with my post-high-school routine of moving to a different country on at least a biannual basis. But it will be good to be closer to friends and family, and living in Amsterdam will be a new experience for me after living in Beerze and Leiden.

Before moving back, though, I am planning to get to know the US better by making a road-trip to California. The tentative route will include Savannah, Georgia; New Orleans, Louisiana; Austin, Texas; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Moab, Utah; Los Angeles, California and finally San Francisco. It should be a good mix of cities and natural parks, hostels and campsites, coast and inland and desert and mountains, so I’m excited. Finally I’ll get to see the great natural beauty of the US I’ve heard so much about.

But it’s also fun to be on the road in DC, and to get to know this city better. With that purpose – and to make some money for the long road-trip – I’ve started working as a bike-messenger. I was always intrigued by the fearless guys (and some girls) who ride their awesome looking bikes through traffic to deliver documents and packages all over town as quickly as possible. So now I get to go from law-firms to government departments, from travel agencies to embassies and from NGO’s to accounting firms to file documents, deliver paychecks, apply for visas and pick up financial statements for audit. I is a great way to get to see the buildings where organizations such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the DC District Federal Court, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Human Rights Watch etc. are located.

It also offers me the opportunity to get to know DC from a whole different perspective. Instead of the well-equipped, protective and comfortable environments of universities or office buildings, the streets in DC expose you to the weather and traffic, and allow interaction with homeless and hustlers. Talking to other bike-messengers and service staff of office buildings also shows the less glorious side of DC, where people don’t get the salary, security and perks that go with a job at a law-firm or a government agency. While most people visualize such more glamorous occupations when thinking about DC, the majority of those that are born and raised here end up doing the more mundane tasks, and now I finally have a chance to experience that life-style too. I must say, I enjoy it for the time being, but I’m glad that I have the prospect of a job at a Dutch bank, where I don’t have to worry about exposure to the elements, getting into an accident or the amount of my income. It will also be nice to learn new things again, because by now there are few surprises left in my day-to-day activities.

Another great way to explore the area around DC is on a motorized bicycle. After getting my motorcycle endorsement in May, I finally hit the road on a rented bike (at the front in the picture) a few weeks ago together with Mike, whom I had met at the motorcycle training. It was great to see the countryside in Maryland without the confinement of a car. A motorcycle also offers a much more direct experience of the speed, power and sound produced by the engine, making it less of a mind-numbing activity such as driving a car can turn into. I was always wondering what it would be like to ride a bike, and now I finally got to experience it! And I must say, it made me appreciate and understand America’s love of motor-vehicles a bit more.

That was even more so after Mike took Chloe and me to a car-show in Manassas, about 40 miles west of DC. There, car-lovers who had bought and restored classic beauties such as old Ford Mustangs, Chevrolet Corvettes, Dodge Challengers etc. showed off their cars, often with the hood open to make the engine visible. Strong symbols of the time when the US car industry was still alive and well. Why don’t they make cars like that anymore?

Banking on the Future

The last semester at the George Washington University was a great introduction to the next stage of my studies: real-life application of everything I’ve learned so far.

As far as courses are concerned, Global Investment Banking gave an interesting overview of the main activities investment banks engage in, accompanied by great stories based on the experiences of Mr. Seale, who started his own investment bank and had been teaching the course for a good number of years. It made me all the more interested in finance, but I also realized that I didn’t want to help just any company go public or take over another company. I want to do that for companies that play a pivotal role in economic development and sustainability, such as power generation, infrastructure, finance or telecom. Those kind of industries is where I want to apply my knowledge.

For my International Portfolio Management course, I had to put together a portfolio of securities to maximize the return on the portfolio. While this was an interesting exercise, I also realized that I wanted to engage in more long-term investment with the goal of helping a company (or rather a community or country) grow, not just to make money for myself or my client.

For the Capstone project, I developed a financial model for a waste-to-energy plant. That was a lot of fun, and it made me realize that I like to work with numbers and manipulate them in Excel. It's like solving a complex puzzle using the countless tools offered by Excel. That is something I want to learn more about and get more experience in in the near future.

Apart from coursework, I learned a lot from my experience with SIFE GWU. While I finished my project that aimed to teach artists how to be more successful in marketing their work, I didn’t manage to find a successor and build a sustainable team. So SIFE GWU doesn’t exist anymore. I guess it takes more time and dedication, more motivated people and a longer breath to set up a team. I still like to implement my own ideas, though, and I hope to start something up again in the future, but hopefully in a more professional, thorough way.

Another lesson I learned during the last semester is that job search, career and compensation are quite different in the US and in the Netherlands. I sent out many resumes to American companies, applying for all kinds of jobs with investment funds, development agencies, clean-tech start-ups and financial institutions, but barely heard back from them. Even if I would have gotten a job, I probably would have been doing some kind of back-office task for the first few years before moving on to the interesting stuff. I might have gotten a really nice salary, but not many vacation days or other benefits. Basically, what I realized is that a master’s degree doesn’t mean much here. You need at least a couple of years of experience and well developed technical skills to start at an interesting position at any company.

In the Netherlands, on the other hand, I think many employers expect more from recent graduates, especially if they have a master’s degree. Because you should be smart, learn quickly and be highly motivated, you are involved in a wide range of activities, including decision making processes. At least, that was already the case when I interned with the procurement department at ABN AMRO. Even if the salary might be a bit lower, this is more than compensated by a wide range of benefits, including a good amount of vacation.

So I not only applied for jobs in the US, but also in the Netherlands, and a few weeks ago, I passed the final round of interviews with ING Bank and got accepted in their ING Talent Program. This traineeship contains a six-week long intensive banking course, followed by a few rotations at different departments. I applied for their Commercial Banking program, and hope to focus on structured finance, which includes the financing of energy, infrastructure and power projects. ING aims to expand their lending activity in these sectors, so I think it will be a great opportunity to get some experience – learning more about what I like while applying everything I’ve learned so far.