Internship Spotlight: Kate Lowenstein ’27, J.P. Morgan

Internship: J.P. Morgan, New York City
Hometown: Duluth, Georgia
Pronouns: she/her/hers
SOM class I used on the job: Sourcing & Managing Funds
Go-to work lunch: Sweetgreen
After-work routine: Attempting to unwind, then getting to bed so I could do it all again the next morning!
Favorite thing about my internship city: A summer in New York with so many SOM friends nearby.

Two years ago, I was teaching algebra in a New York City public high school. This summer, I hit the desk at J.P. Morgan, working on live deals in the consumer and retail group. It was a pretty big change, to say the least.

Before business school, I spent two years with Teach For America and briefly worked in consulting. I came to SOM interested in pivoting into finance, and investment banking was a completely new world to me. When recruiting started last fall, even the vocabulary felt new. J.P. Morgan quickly became one of the places I was most excited about. I was drawn to the scale of the firm and the opportunity to work across some of the most interesting transactions in the market.

Before starting, though, I was nervous. After surviving teaching algebra to over 150 ninth-graders, I knew I could work hard. But I had never worked at an investment bank. I wondered whether I would know enough on day one or be able to keep up with peers who had a finance background.

That is where SOM made such a difference. Classes like Sourcing & Managing Funds and Basics of Accounting gave me a strong foundation and helped me feel much more confident walking into the technical parts of the job. Just as important was the Finance Club. Second-year students and mentors helped prepare us for all the things that are harder to learn in a classroom: how to navigate a new team, ask good questions, manage competing priorities, and understand what being a great associate actually looks like.

Over my nine weeks on the job, I got exposure to projects across M&A, equity, and debt, and I was constantly learning. The Consumer & Retail group advises many of the brands people interact with every day, across industries like retail, restaurants, food and beverage, and consumer products. We help these companies navigate transactions and other strategic decisions. I loved the pace of the group. There was always something happening, and I got to work alongside people who knew these companies and industries incredibly well.

I saw the Yale network show up throughout my summer. I was lucky enough to work in the same group as Drew Walker, an SOM alum and former Finance Club president, who became a great resource and mentor. I also had the opportunity to work on a deal with Jonathan Dunlop, another SOM alum and a senior banker at the firm. It was pretty amazing to go from relying on SOM second-years during recruiting to suddenly working alongside Yale alumni on actual deals.

People warned me before the summer about the hours in banking—and yes, there are long days. What surprised me was how much I enjoyed the work. When you are working on an interesting deal with a team you like, there is an energy to it that is hard to replicate.

Somewhere along the way, the career pivot I had been working toward since arriving at SOM stopped feeling like a pivot and started feeling like my actual career. I came into the summer hoping I would like investment banking. I left knowing I wanted to come back.

I was fortunate to receive and accept a return offer, and after graduation I’ll be heading back to J.P. Morgan in New York. It is exciting to think that something that felt completely unfamiliar when I arrived at SOM last fall is now the beginning of my next chapter.

For anyone coming to SOM hoping to make a big career change: It can feel intimidating at first. Ask the questions, lean on your classmates and second-years, and don’t assume that everyone else knows more than you do. SOM gave me the technical foundation, the mentors, and—most importantly—the confidence to make a transition I wasn’t sure was possible. And keep a coffee order ready—you’ll need that too!