One thing about QUESTees – everyone is going above and beyond in every way, and this summer was no exception! I spoke to five different students to hear about their internships experiences all over the country.
Abby Bond (Cohort 37), a senior Bioengineering major, worked as a Life Science Business Partner Intern at Becton Dickinson (BD) in New Jersey. When asked about her experience, she said “My favorite part was the community! I was an intern as part of the Edge Rotational program, and it was such a lovely time. Moving to a brand new town, I was comforted by the community of my internship which reminded me a lot of QUEST. From having a close-knit group of motivated individuals to having committees just like our QUEST Student Orgs, it was easy to feel at home.” Bond learned a few things over the summer, the first being “a lot about the software development life cycle in a highly-regulated corporate environment,” and the second being that “no bagel is quite as good as a New Jersey bagel.” Her main piece of advice, given by a mentor is ‘“If you’re not any bit uncomfortable, you’re not in a space where you can learn and grow.”
“My internship was very PowerBI heavy, which I had no previous experience with. I found the learning curve stressful at times, but I found that sweet spot where I was able to learn more technical skills, learn more about myself, and gain confidence in my tenacity,” she shared.
Abby Bond (Cohort 37) during her internship final presentation
Amanda Liu (Cohort 37), a senior Computer Science major, worked as a SWE Intern at Databricks in San Francisco, CA. This summer, Liu worked on Apache Spark — an open source framework that is the largest distributed data processing system in the world. Her favorite part of the internship was getting to present one of her projects (English SDK for Apache Spark) at the annual Databricks Data+AI Summit! She especially enjoyed this experience because she “loved learning about the open source software development process, from writing design docs to holding community discussions with developers across the world.” When asked about tips for other QUESTees, Liu said, “Apply to Databricks internships and job openings! I also highly recommend trying to contribute to open source projects of interest, as it’s a great way to improve your software development skills.” Overall, she loved the people she worked with! She had an incredible team and also got really close with the other interns throughout the summer!
Amanda Liu (Cohort 37) at the annual Databricks Data+AI Summit
Adelina Seck (Cohort 39), a junior OMBA and Information Systems major, worked as a Business Analyst Intern at Capital One. When asked about her favorite parts, she mentioned “getting to meet a lot of new people and working towards making a recommendation to my industry VP that impacted the strategy they used moving forward. It was really cool to see the impact my work had on the industry!” Something new Seck learned was technical skills regarding SQL, databases, and interfaces. A piece of advice that she has for other QUESTees is to “be persistent! I went to several events, a summit, and talked to recruiters in order to emphasize my interest in the position.”
Adelina Seck (Cohort 39), bottom left, and other Capital One interns
Elaine Sanico (Cohort 37), a senior Mechanical Engineering major, is doing a Research & Development Co-cop at Edward Lifesciences. When asked about her work, Sanico said, “My favorite experience so far has been walking through a procedure with the PASCAL device, one of Edwards’ transcatheter repair therapies designed to address cardiac valve disease. For patients who are not eligible for open heart surgery, transcatheter therapies allow the physician to enter the heart often through the femoral artery starting with an incision in the upper thigh. I was able to practice deploying this device on an explanted porcine heart by using cardiac ultrasound to navigate the cardiac space.” As a mechanical engineer, she has learned a lot about anatomy this summer, which has been a great learning opportunity to work hands–on testing cardiac repair and replacement devices on animal valves. When asked for advice, Sanico’s main tip was to “network! There are many companies out there that could be a great fit for you but don’t come to UMD. Utilizing LinkedIn to connect with alumni is a great way to break into companies! And once you start at the company, keep that network strong by having coffee chats and going to events.”
Elaine Sanico (Cohort 37) at the Edwards Lifesciences office
Meghana Padhmanaban (Cohort 37), a senior Finance and OMBA major, worked as a Private Bank Summer Analyst in the Financial Institutions Group at J.P Morgan. When asked about her experience, she said, “I loved being able to meet so many different kinds of people with different backgrounds. In the Private Bank, not only do you meet other wealth managers who have different career journeys, you get to meet clients who have all made a name for themselves in the financial industry (especially since the team I worked with covers hedge fund managers and their families).” Her main piece of advice is to “[talk] to as many people as you can who work in Private Banking to get an understanding of what the day to day is like and the kinds of clients each team covers. This field is filled with very extroverted people who love getting to know others, and a lot of recruiting is also done through word of mouth from coffee chats set up by candidates as well. If anyone has any questions, I’d be happy to chat!”
Meghana Padhmanaban (Cohort 37), right, with other J.P Morgan interns