Rebecca Brown – Cohort 18
“This summer I have two “offices”: my car and the QUEST lab. I am spending my three months of freedom as a local sales representative for University Directories, a leading multi-platform marketing company providing advertising-supported publications and services to the college market. At the University of Maryland, UD publishes the student planner distributed for free by Terp AMA the first week of classes. Over the last year, I have gained an interest in advertising sales and this summer job provides me with the experience I need to launch a sales career!
I spent the second half of exam week away from College Park at the University of North Carolina for UD’s Sales Foundation Academy. This was an intense week of sales training, but, similar to QUEST orientation, the experience allowed for me to bond with my UMD sales team and network with hundreds of college students from across the country. It is a week that I will never forget and I met a ton of new friends!
Back at Maryland, my sales team meets every morning in Commons 6 before heading out to make our sales calls. I average about 35 sales calls a day to local businesses in the College Park community. I usually end my day back in the QUEST lab where I send some last minute emails and organize myself for the following day. Cold calling is tough, but finally making a sale is extremely rewarding. I think the best part of this experience is being able to meet hundreds of business owners around the community. I would say about 50% are friendly but all of them are interesting. So far, this summer job has taught me patience, hard work, and perseverance. I have learned that sometimes you just have to laugh at a situation when things get tough and then move on to the next opportunity. If you have any interest in sales, teamwork, or if you just like a challenge, I would highly recommend this summer job opportunity!”
Chetali Gupta – Cohort 18
“This summer, I am a research intern at a private research laboratory that researches and develops advanced materials. It is primarily funded by the National Defense.”
Mike Hamilton – Cohort 18
“This summer, I am working for SpaceX, a space company in Los Angeles, CA. SpaceX is an aggressive fast paced company that plans to launch rockets quicker and more efficiently than ever before. This internship is a great opportunity to learn a lot of technical concepts and see how communication is essential in the workplace. I am personally working in the Dynamics department, which is responsible for testing the parts made by others to ensure they will survive flight. I also work with selecting sensors and interpreting the data we receive from them. Los Angeles is a great place to have a summer job because I can walk to the beach and ride my bike up and down the coast.”
Mike takes time to enjoy a perk of interning in Los Angeles.
Justin Huang – Cohort 18
“I’m working as a Business Analyst Intern at Capital One this summer. QUEST was one of my main talking points during the interviews and prepared me for the job with experience in teamwork, presentations, and process improvement. “
Josh Kohn – Cohort 18
“I’m living in downtown Seattle working for Amazon. I’m working in the retail technology sector, writing code to monitor and redesign parts of the system that tracks Contra-COGS agreements and accounts between Amazon and its vendors. When I’m not working, I enjoy the view of the Space Needle from my apartment window and explore all that Seattle has to offer.”
Manas Kulkarni – Cohort 18
“I’m a Customer Development Intern with Unilever this summer, specifically working on Retail Operations for Wal-Mart. Essentially, I’ll be working on analyzing (and hopefully improving) On Shelf Availability (OSA) for Wal-Mart. In the 4 P’s of marketing, this most represents “placement,” which I honestly was least expecting to work on. But, 10 minutes from the Wal-Mart headquarters in AR, and with 5 other friendly interns working with me, it’s playing out to be an excellent summer so far!”
Eric Oliver – Cohort 17
“Right now, I am in Seattle working in an internship with Amazon.com. The team I am working in is called Global Financial Systems. We create the tools necessary to make records of every transaction that takes place across all divisions of Amazon around the world. With these records, we generate reports for the SEC and stockholders, as well as provide deep analysis of sales. We are currently in the process of upgrading our systems, so my job is to create the tools necessary to diagnose problems as more transactions are integrated into this new system.”
Eric poses with new Amazon gear from his internship.
Sahil Rahman – Cohort 17
“Hola amigos! I hope everyone’s summer is going well. My name is Sahil Rahman, and I am a rising senior in Cohort 17. This summer, I am going to be interning with a company named Universal Success Enterprises Limited (USEL). USEL happens to own the rights to Outback Steakhouse in Southeast Asia, so I will be working with the company in Singapore, the Philippines, and Indonesia from June 16th – August 11th. I’ll also be stopping in Hong Kong for a couple nights on my way to Singapore, and then Tokyo for a couple days on my way back home to the US! The company is looking to open more Outback locations in Asia, so for my internship, I will be helping the company search for expansion opportunities and help them make their operations more scalable. I’m the company’s only intern, and don’t know anyone in Southeast Asia, so it should be an interesting trip!”
Rochelle Samuel – Cohort 19
“This summer, I have a research internship at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. It’s not that easy getting one as a freshman (soon to be sophomore), so I’m pretty proud of it. Plus, it’s paid! The focus is Cellular Engineering, and my specific project is regarding protein folding and how it can go wrong. Mistakes in protein folding can cause neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease. Right now, I am studying protein folding in a strain of E. Coli to gain more information but further research can extend to humans. This internship stems from the Institute of Cellular Engineering Research Experience for Undergraduates (ICE REU) Program that I heard about from the Engineering and WIE listserv, so it just proves that it’s good to read your email!”
Ethan Shapir – Cohort 18
“This summer, I am working as a Marketing Intern for Liberty Credit Law. I have been given the responsibility of redesigning the corporate website, writing press releases, creating a corporate video, developing a marketing plan for a new product line, and other later-to-be-named tasks.”
Mercedes Valero – Cohort 19
“I’m currently in Philadelphia doing an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) at the University of Pennsylvania’s Nano/Bio Interface Center. I am doing a 10-week research program micro-contact printing Self-Assembling Monolayer molecules (SAMs). My task is to derive a method of printing that produces patterned SAMs using a basic alkanethiol. Once I have established a method, I will help print more complex molecules onto graphite in order to analyze them for optical properties. I’m very excited to be working in a lab all summer and hope to learn a lot!”