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.
Category Archives: Internship Experiences
QUEST Students Soar Through Summer
Even though school isn’t in session over the summer, that doesn’t change the fact that QUEST students are always doing amazing things. This summer, 86% of QUEST sophomores and juniors participated in internships, while another 5% continued coursework or participated in research and another 5% had full-time jobs. The top companies to hire QUEST interns were Capital One, KPMG, and Meta (each with 5 students from QUEST). QUESTPress is excited to highlight two of our students and take a look back at their summers!
Seattle to San Antonio: QUEST Students Recap their Summers
With QUEST being filled with such ambitious students, it’s no surprise to hear about the impressive and exciting summers its students have! Not only do students gain a variety of internship, research, or work experience, they also make sure to have fun.
Michelle Lui (Cohort 34) interned at Discovery, Inc. as a data science intern working on the Food Network Kitchen app. This was her first experience working in the tech industry, whereas her internship last summer was in consulting. She said, “My favorite part was being able to work with consumer data and conduct behavioral analysis on app interactions. It was also so interesting seeing all the data that is collected and processed behind the scenes in order to make continuous improvements to the product.” Outside of her internship, she went on multiple short trips to new cities including Boston, Portland, New York City, and Ithaca to see friends from both high school and college. During her time in Seattle, she visited the Discovery, Inc. office in person, hung out with fellow interns that lived in the area, and even went to the QUEST meetup where she met someone from Cohort 1! In between, she caught up on some summer reading and says, “If you’re looking for recommendations, my favorites were Pachinko and The Namesake.”
Michelle strolling the streets of NYC this summer
A New Kind of Summer Internship
Summer is usually an excellent time to augment the lessons learned in classrooms with other experiences like internships. Being able to work in the industry with professionals is incredibly rewarding. Interns are left with memories that last them a lifetime. Although circumstances aren’t ideal this summer, many QUEST students will be fortunate enough to participate in some fun internships, even if they are virtual. These might not be normal times, but QUEST students are still adapting to the challenging circumstances. I was able to get an inside look at some of our students’ summer plans:
Gesna Aggarwal, a computer science major in Cohort 32, will be a Software Engineering Intern at Microsoft. She’ll be a part of the Azure team, working in the realm of Cloud technology. Gesna was able to connect with QUEST alumni who work at Microsoft in the QUEST Lab and at the fall career fairs. They encouraged her to apply to the position and answered her questions, too. One of them, Julia Lomakina from Cohort 26, made a great impression on Gesna. They talked about the Microsoft Employee Hackathon, where Julia had created a solution that helped make education more accessible. This inspired Gesna, who’s excited about being able to craft her own innovations this summer. She’s also excited to be able to learn a lot on the job and network with as many people as possible. Her internship has been converted to a remote one due to the current situation, but she’s excited to make the most of this opportunity and have a blast anyway!
Owen Roy, a bioengineering major in Cohort 32, will be interning at Rise Therapeutics in Rockville, MD. Rise is a biotechnology company leveraging research to develop biopharmaceuticals that can be taken orally instead of intravenously. Owen will be working to develop these therapies and get them approved for general use, as well as situate the company to succeed in the larger market. He leveraged his experiences from 190H and 390H when he was interviewing for the role. He said, “Because of my experiences in QUEST, I was able to present myself as someone who was interested and capable in both the technical and business sides of the biotechnology industry.” This will be Owen’s first experience in the biotechnology industry, so he hopes to be able to explore it and narrow down his interests for full-time roles. He hopes to be able to make a difference in any way possible and is looking forward to getting hands-on experience with the various operations of the company. Owen is unsure if his internship will be in-person or remote at the moment, but said that if he’s unable to go into the labs, he will focus more on the business side of the company. Either way, he feels fortunate to have this position and hopes to make the most of it.
Anusha Dixit, an aerospace engineering major from Cohort 31, will be a Systems Engineering Intern on the Exploration Medical Capability project for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. She’ll be adding to systems engineering models documenting baseline medical systems for future missions, as well as modeling the likelihood of medical conditions occurring on a mission. She thinks her experiences working with data in QUEST, coupled with a previous internship in the same field, helped her land the role. She’s very excited to see how medical systems for spaceflight missions are modeled, especially going into the Artemis moon missions. She’s also looking for opportunities to grow professionally and make great connections. Although her internship has been converted to a remote one, Anusha says she’s “still extremely thankful to be getting valuable work experience in these unprecedented times.”
All of these experiences sound incredible. Even though the summer has been dampened a little bit by these unusual circumstances, it’s great to see that QUEST students are still making the most out of the situations they find themselves in. Best of luck, everyone!
Summer Recap: Internships
QUEST students are well known for being involved and on the go during the semester, and we certainly don’t stop once school lets out. From systems engineering in San Francisco (Renee Adkins, Q23) to reimagining the orchestra right here at home (Sarina Haryanto, Q26), QUEST students have made a splash all over the country. For more details on what everyone’s been up to this summer, check out the #QUESTinterns series on Instagram!
Alumni on Advanced Certifications and Degrees
By: Jacob Wilkowsky (Q19)
March 2014:
Flying Back from Spring Break in Barcelona
I knew the CPA lay abruptly ahead. Committed to work in public accounting after graduation, it seemed like there was no alternative. My future employer provided the Becker study materials. My friends in the field either had the accreditation or were well on their way to achieving it. Pursuing the CPA didn’t feel like a decision, but an inevitability. Little did I know it was a slippery slope…
January 2015:
All Smiles in my Grandmother’s Guest Bedroom
Well the CPA didn’t go as planned, but at least I was done. Seven months, hundreds of hours studying, and six attempts later I passed all four sections (FAR, REG, BEC, and AUD). However, even before the results of my final attempt came out, I was registered to take Level I of the CFA in June. This time, the reasons I enrolled weren’t so clear. For certain the ease of the CPA wasn’t a factor—it truly was a miserable experience. However, my education in finance, past experience in valuation, and yada, yada, yada—none of you care.
Today
I’m gearing up for Level II of the CFA. Facing the deep abyss ahead, I can’t help but wonder how I got here. In the approximately three years since graduation, I’ve lived in five apartments (including my grandmother’s guest bedroom), worked at two firms, and gone on one additional international journey. However, the singular constant has been the unyielding pressure of studying for advanced certifications. At least I can take solace in the knowledge that my obsession with abbreviations is shared by fellow QUEST alumni seeking advanced degrees in science, medicine, law, and business.
Santiago Miret (Q18), PhD student in Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Berkeley
You’re brilliant, we get it. Why get the PhD? Could you gain the same knowledge elsewhere?
One thing that you learn while doing a PhD is how truly not-brilliant you are, but I think that is the case for any challenging work that you do because you get exposed to how much more there is to do and learn. The PhD is very conducive for challenging learning because it is set up for you to explore topics that have never been explored and create new knowledge to share with the world. It may be possible to acquire similar knowledge somewhere else, but it is very difficult to acquire depth outside the environment of the PhD.
Tony Trinh (Q21), medical student at the University of Maryland School of Medicine
Since graduating it seems like my friends in Med School have had it the worst in terms of up front investment in their career (grueling workload, financial cost, longest-term payoff). Why do you think there are so many people lining up for the opportunity?
I think what it comes down to is that people in medical school are content to play the long game (and I mean L-O-N-G game). Although both the financial and even psychological costs of medical school are astronomically high, I don’t know a single person in my class who isn’t passionate about medicine. It might sound a bit romantic but I genuinely believe that everyone here has an earnest desire to help their fellow man and are willing to go through what can sometimes seem like hell to do so. Of course there is a financial driving force tied in there but anyone who’s looking for ONLY a quick pay out wouldn’t last a day in medical school. From my perspective of my class and my school, the job comes first and paycheck comes later (much later) but we’re okay with that and wouldn’t you rather have a doctor who looks at you like a patient rather than a source of income?
Matt Sarna (Q19), law student at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
People say that law school teaches you how to think like a lawyer. Did anything in QUEST help prepare you for this transformation?
Plenty of my peers questioned why a business school QUEST student would be interested in pursuing a law degree. My answer has always been that QUEST does not prepare you to go into a specific field, it prepares you to take a client’s opportunity head-on and develop a synthesized solution that addresses each facet of the issue. That is the foundation of a successful lawyer. Law school teaches you how to take black letter law, ambiguous regulations, and ever-changing political landscapes and massage a client’s needs to fit. It teaches you to keep asking, “What if…” and “Why.”
Richard (Ricky) Wilson (Q6), M.B.A at the University of Chicago – Booth School of Business
[Ricky also has a Masters in Electrical Engineering and Six Sigma Greenbelt]
Based on my friend’s Snapchat, business school is alternating sprints between the library and bar. How true is this interpretation and what was the best lesson you learned as an MBA?
That was not my business school experience, but it can be the experience of some. It may likely depend upon your background prior to entering business school. I never spent much time in the library. Business school was really a lesson on time management, an opportunity for personal and professional development, and an immersion into diversity. The coursework is generally not very challenging for people with analytical backgrounds, but it can be time consuming. There is a lot of reading and a lot of group assignments. Besides homework there is recruiting, student groups, building friendships, and definitely going to bars. It is basically always someone’s birthday, there is always a student group event, there is always a company on campus, and there is always homework to be done. People have to learn how to manage and prioritize these demands. The biggest benefit of business school is the relationships you develop, but that can’t be at the expense of finding a job and passing classes.
I’ve also never been in an environment with people having such diverse backgrounds across ethnicities, work experience, recreational interests, travel, country of residence, etc. It really just exposes you to various opportunities and inspires you to accomplish great things. It is a chance to try new things and to re-examine what you once considered your boundaries or limitations.
The biggest thing I walked away with was self-awareness. I learned a lot about how I am perceived, how I behave in various situations, how I can influence those situations, and where I can develop. Beyond that, I think business school really teaches you to identify an unmet need (sometimes an unknown need) and how to successfully address that opportunity. It provides tools, resources, and relationships that provide advantages.
Jason Graub (Q17), CPA and Co-founder and CFO at Gameplan
How much thought did you put into getting the CPA? What’s it worth to you now?
In terms of time put into CPA, once I made the decision to go the accounting route ( which I wavered on a few times throughout college) I knew I had to get the CPA in order for it to be worth it. Especially when KPMG would pay for Becker and the tests and I’d get the bonus when I passed.
What’s it worth to me now: Now it’s a nice fall back and provides some credibility on my resume. But I don’t view as something crucial to my long-term success. I’m debating whether to let my active license expire (I’ll probably renew next year through 2019, but since I’m not practicing and don’t see accounting in my long-term future there isn’t much incentive to keep up with the CPE’s, which are a pain).
Bryan Towns (Q7), Six Sigma Blackbelt and Director of Program Management at Abbott
[Bryan is also has a Masters in Product Development Engineering, MBA, and PMP]
The Six Sigma Blackbelt seems like the certification most aligned with QUEST’s core teaching curriculum. Can you talk to the value it’s added to your career?
While applying the Six Sigma methodology in my career, I have realized that it is a natural extension of the QUEST experience. Systems thinking, an emphasis on data-based decision making, continuous improvement, and even techniques for effective team management are threads that are shared between the QUEST experience and in all variants of the Six Sigma methodology. Therefore, it is difficult for me to isolate either the Six Sigma certification or QUEST experience as the sole contributor, as they are so intertwined. As an example, I remember describing the use of a Pugh Matrix, which I had learned in QUEST, in a panel interview to land my first job out of UMD, before even realizing that it was part of the Six Sigma tool kit. As an engineer, I relied on Designs of Experiments to build robust designs into the products that I developed, and as a Program Manager, I rely on Voice of the Customer techniques to ensure that my teams are aligned with our customers’ unmet needs. In that sense, both QUEST and Six Sigma have provided me with tools that I have used to solve problems as I have grown in my career.
Ningwei Li (Q20), Investment fellow at T. Rowe Price, CFA level III Candidate
What is the CFA charter?
CFA, chartered financial analyst, is a designation for professionals interested in the field of investment research and portfolio management. Essentially the process requires passing three exams, each requiring about 100 hours or more of preparation, and four years of working experience in the investment industry. Many firms see the CFA designation as a way of showing commitment in the industry as well as a person’s ability to learn. I personally think the CFA exposes a candidate to so much of finance that learning alone is worthwhile. Luckily, I’m currently sponsored by my firm to take the CFA exams. To me, it’s a no brainer that I should pursue the designation.
What question should QUEST students ask themselves when planning to pursue an advanced certification or degree?
Richard (Ricky) Wilson (Q6)
The biggest question to ask is ‘do the benefits outweigh the costs?’ The cost is not just financial, but also the opportunity cost. What else could you be doing with your time, does this provide you with the most utility, and what will you be able to accomplish that you could not without it (or at a faster pace than without it)? The financial benefits will be related to supply and demand as well. People should try to spend some time estimating the future demand, evaluating the future supply, and risk factors that could affect both and thus change the economic value of the decision.
Bryan Towns (Q7)
Be careful to pursue only those certifications that will be the most impactful within your field. I have had a number of colleagues who had an “alphabet soup” of certifications in their email signature lines, but were not exceptionally strong within any one of their apparent areas of expertise. Choosing a couple of accreditations that will better help you to serve your organization, customers, and clients is much more valuable than sheer quantity.
Santiago Miret (Q18)
I would suggest to conduct your own research as to what each degree or certification means. Many degrees showcase to the broader audience that you have certain skill sets or certain knowledge, yet there may be other ways to show that you have that skill set or knowledge. Degrees and certifications are often just a tool to help you get somewhere you are striving towards. That being said, it is also important to remain humble and acknowledge how much you truly know so that you don’t overestimate or underestimate yourself.
Jason Graub (Q17)
Students should be asking what are they truly interested in and what will provide them with the most value long-term. For me, I do appreciate the CPA and I think it’s good to have, but if I’d done it again, I would’ve gone a different direction most likely and not gotten it. Especially since it required 150 credits which is a lot to ask for a certification, if you’re not going to be a practicing CPA.
Tony Trinh (Q21)
How much are you willing to sacrifice to get what you want?
Ningwei Li (Q20)
How will the certification help you reach your goal? I think as a student as well as a young professional, you can learn so much more through your work than pursuing an advanced certification that doesn’t help you reach your goal.
Conclusion:
Thank you guys for participating!
As a student you can often find yourself obsessing over your life after college– I certainly did. However, in all the simulations I ran in my head, I never predicted how dedicated I’d be to advanced degrees in my first two years out of College Park. Whether or not you want to be a doctor, lawyer, business executive, scientist, etc., it is important to do some research and investigate the opportunities for advanced certifications or degrees that may align with your interests. Thanks again to my interviewees for taking the time to share their insight!
Hacking the Career Search Process for Students
By: Jacob Wilkowsky (Q19)
Introduction
October introduces a new chapter for students re-settling into College Park. Presented with a proverbial clean slate, the list of individual goals for Fall Semester 2016 is surely piling up. Aspirations may include a robust social life, stellar academic performance, and personal best athletic achievements. However, the objective for QUEST undergrads is often the same—to secure full-time employment.
The career search process is different for everyone. Students face an infinite set of opportunities depending on their seniority (e.g. Junior, Senior), background (e.g. major, experiences), intended industry (e.g. financial services, healthcare), and desired functional role (e.g. researcher, entrepreneur). The variety of opportunities is often mind-boggling and can leave one struggling to identify a clear path. Resumes, cover letters, applications, career fairs, cold calls, and interviews can inject anxiety into an otherwise amazing time.
I’ll be forthright. I received a B in BMGT367: Career Search Strategies in Business four years ago. I’m no career coach. However, after successfully acquiring a job as a Big 4 auditor and just recently joining FTI Consulting’s Forensic and Litigation Consulting Practice in New York, I have a certain baseline level of confidence in my ability to articulate experiences that could be useful for undergrads. More importantly, I know a pretty impressive group of alumni a year or two out of college willing to provide their insight as well. I hope, by sharing the insights of alumni not too far removed from where you stand today, I leave you feeling more empowered than overwhelmed in your career search process.
Alumni Insights
Q: As a sophomore how clear was your vision of your first one/two years out of college? How close to reality did that vision turn out?
Max Cooper [Q19, Civil Engineering, Unilever—Management Trainee]
About as clear as mud and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I didn’t even know if I wanted to pursue a career within my civil engineering major or something completely different, let alone the typical categories like large vs. small organizations, public vs. private sector, or strategy vs. operations. Luckily, QUEST taught me the benefit of iterative design. I applied this trial and error approach to narrowing down my career interests and gaining access to the opportunities that inspired me most.
By no means did I do it alone. The mentoring program and QUEST-specific electives, like scoping (BMGT/ENES 491), were essential to honing in on my final career path. Ultimately, I pursued supply chain rotational development programs, relying heavily on QUEST corporate partner events to get my foot in the door. After scoping out a 490H project with Unilever and then directly working on that project, I set my sights on the firm for full-time employment due to my interest in their ambitious mission, positive culture, and emphasis on talent development. Since then I have co-oped there, joined their leadership program and am now entering my second rotation, continually having my expectations exceeded with each opportunity.
Following three internships and a co-op at four different companies across many industries, my career vision continued to evolve as I focused in on my true passions with each work experience, as I still do today.
Q: What decisive action/decision did you make/take as a junior that most positively impacted your career?
Praneet Puppala (Q21, Computer Science/Finance, APT—Software Engineer)
Something I did junior year that turned out to be very rewarding was actively explore companies outside those present at career fairs. I searched for UMD alumni at interesting companies around the country, cold called them and tried to not leave any stone unturned. As with most cold calls, I wasn’t expecting many positive responses, but the alumni were very helpful and most of them were willing to at least hop on a call for a quick chat. This, in turn, led to learning about many new exciting opportunities and led to at least a few interviews and a few new contacts!
Alex Wilson (Q22, Finance, Point72—Associate Analyst)
Networking is the most important thing I did my junior year. As college students, we think we can get an idea of our career interests from reading or talking to professors or peers, but those are all secondary sources. I would find people on LinkedIn whose roles I was interested in, contact them and then have conversations about their career. That enabled me to know exactly what I wanted to do for my junior summer internship and for my full-time job afterwards. The information from career fairs and recruiters is more marketing material than anything. Being aggressive and taking control of your career search process is vital to being happy with your career path well after you’ve left college.
Q: What was the career search process like for you your senior year?
Cat Ashley (Q19, Chemical Engineering, Gore—Process Engineer)
My career search entailed ‘putting my eggs in multiple baskets’, as one can derive from the idiom. During my undergrad summers, I completed internships in research-oriented and industrial fields to determine where my interests were post-graduation. I decided to pursue a job rather than continue my studies in graduate school because I enjoyed the engaging, hands-on, application driven nature of working in industry. While my internship experience at W.L. Gore set me up for a full-time job offer, I also submitted applications and attended career fairs/workshops for multiple other companies. This gave me practice interacting with industry representatives, polishing my resume, presenting myself as a viable candidate, and learn more about what the industries are working on. I applied to all sorts of job postings in consulting, engineering, research, project management, etc. in order to see what came back. Following through with the interview process and offer negotiations gave me valuable experience in weighing career options, gaining communication skills (through interviews, emails, phone conversations with reps), and thinking consciously about what the next formative years of my life would entail. As an engineer, I also contemplated the pros and cons of working in consulting or industry, as others had shared that it may be challenging to go back to engineering after working as in consulting for many years. At the end of it all, I received a few serious job offers, and my interests in technical problem-solving combined with my existing network led to me accepting the offer at W.L. Gore. It’s been a little over two years since I started my career here, and it’s been a transformative, challenging, and empowering two years for sure.
Danny (Q19, Computer Science, Booze Allen Hamilton – Senior Consultant)
It was pretty crazy, honestly. I:
- Interviewed at ~5 companies
- Had to turn down the offer I got from my internship
- Was turned down by 3 of them
- Wound up going to Dante, which was a connection I made because I was in QUEST. I met the HR manager at a student leaders dinner where I was representing QUEST the year before and when I applied, she remembered me and the process was the easiest.
Q: What was the most difficult moment of your career search as an undergrad?
Max Cooper– Undoubtedly deciding to take a semester off from school in favor of a co-op with Unilever. At the time, I was very concerned about delaying graduation, altering my course plans, and missing out on a semester with my friends. Not to mention this was a 6 month commitment to a supply chain field that I had never even studied.
When I looked at the larger picture, I realized the immense benefit of having 6 months (which was extended to 9 months) of experience for a company I already knew I identified with through the 490H experience. In retrospect, the co-op reinforced my interest in the company, dynamically challenged me in ways that no class or internship ever had, and unlocked career opportunities that I could not have imagined possible otherwise.
Even if an opportunity remotely interests you during undergrad, I would recommend taking a leap of faith because tenaciously pursuing that interest can lead to discovering your passion like this experience did for me.
Praneet Puppala– Your final job search as an undergrad during your senior year can be daunting. It’s a big transition, and it sounds like such a monumental feat: signing an offer for your first full time job. It seems like you’re signing your life away and you have to go off of such little information, but at the same time, making sure you explore all of your options, do your research and don’t compromise on what you want will help ease some of the concerns and make it an exciting moment!
Cat Ashley– The most challenging part of my career search was determining where my time and energy was best spent (to help me get a job, keep up with school work, and stay). To manage my time, I treated the job application process like a 4-credit class that required my time, effort, and attention for success. I had some security from my internship that I would receive a full-time offer at W.L. Gore after graduation. While I could have simply accepted the offer and eliminated the need for further job searching, I wanted to explore my options and see what other industries, companies, and teams had to offer. With many viable options (and not knowing exactly what companies or job descriptions would pique my interest), I started submitting resumes and cover letters to a whole host of jobs. From that point, I began receiving emails, phone calls, and schedule requests to follow up and continue the process with over five offers at once. This started taking up more of my time than I anticipated and was distracting me from my goal of finding a job that was right for my interests and skills. After this first round and feeling slightly overwhelmed, I learned to be more selective and thorough in applications rather than overly broad and all-encompassing. This also helped me formulate and communicate my interests, skills, and career needs in a more clear and concise manner.
Danny Laurence– The hardest moment was turning down my internship offer. I had to do it pretty early on in the process, which made it extra hard (turning down a sure thing for a hypothetical). It was an okay offer, but I wanted to see what was out there, and also I wasn’t sold on the company I interned with.
Alex Wilson– The most difficult moment of my career search process was during my sophomore year. For my field of interest, there were no great internship opportunities that were a) available to sophomores b) available to UMD students or c) paid. So it was tough to watch peers take paid internships with large companies and have the patience to intern at firms where the perks were non-existent but the learning opportunity had greater alignment with my career path. That deferral ended up working out well for me so it was worth it.
Hacks
In the answers of alumni above you may find undertones reflective of your current emotional state. Hopefully you feel more confident hearing from those on the other side of the journey to full-time employment. While these answers are from a 500 foot view, I want to also hit the “X’s and O’s,” the techniques sure to help you improve your chances of gainful employment in a desired position.
There are a few key steps you can take in your career search process, which I enumerated below:
- Get Organized
Create an Excel workbook, buy a binder, or use the backside of a napkin. You need some way to track all the companies, deadlines, and contacts out there. By staying organized, you can pursue many more leads.
- Your Resume: It Will Never Be Good Enough
“Make sure your resume is in tip top shape” is probably the most generic advice given to undergrads. However, it’s still true. You can schedule an appointment with the UMD Career Center or attend one of the many employer sponsored workshops.
Pro-tip: Find that one friend in the business fraternity who spent 100 hours on his/her resume as part of pledging. Ask them to help you out.
- Build Your Network, Build it Early
In your organizer you should make a list of companies you’re interested in working for and identify positions you’re qualified for. Search LinkedIn, the QUEST Directory, talk to family, and search company websites for individuals you think could be a resource. Send as many emails as possible asking to set up an informational interview and attach your resume. Be ready to be rejected, but make sure to utilize your organizer and know exactly where you are with each contact. Respond quickly when responded to and invest the time (including researching the company and position) to convince these individuals that you’re the awesome QUEST student I know you are. It can take a long time to build trust, so start early!
Pro-tip: I know a QUEST student who sent over 1,000 emails when pursuing a job in finance. He calculated a response rate of 1% after the fact. He now works at Goldman Sachs, so it worked out. Take rejection with class and try not to harass alumni if they aren’t responsive—they’re busy.
Conclusion
Hopefully this article helped quell some of your nerves surrounding the career search process. Your future is uncertain, but that shouldn’t ruin the amazing experience of an undergraduate education. By taking steps to refine your resume, expand your network, and organize your career search process you’ll be a more confident candidate and therefore more likely to find a great job. A big thanks to Max, Praneet, Cat, and Danny for sharing their insights!
QUEST Lab Sponsor of the Month: Bloomberg
This month’s QUEST Lab Sponsor is Bloomberg, and in order to highlight the value Bloomberg can provide to students, we sat down with Jessie Xu (Q21) to ask her about her experiences as a Bloomberg intern this past summer.
Q: Can you provide a little background on Bloomberg?
A: Bloomberg is a merge between the finance and tech industries. Their main product, the Bloomberg terminal, maintains data on all worldwide markets, stock prices, and financial news and information necessary to help clients make investment decisions. They also provide analytics, tools, and insights to add value to the incredible amount of data the terminal provides.
Q: What was your role with Bloomberg?
A: I interned in Bloomberg’s Princeton, NJ location within the Global Data division which makes Bloomberg the most sought-after data source in the world. The department is divided into various market sectors including Equities, Fixed Income, and Derivatives. I was placed in the Entities group, which is under the Equities department.
My main responsibility was to update and maintain the quality of the entities data on the terminal. However, I also worked on several other unique projects. One of my most memorable projects was one I did with fellow interns, which lasted throughout the course of the internship. We were split into teams of five and tasked with creating a functionality of our choice that would provide value to the Global Data department, with each team assigned a different industry sector to focus on. This project was a great example of principles taught in QUEST applied to real world situations. Through ongoing collaboration with full-time employees in various departments and combining a diverse array of knowledge and skills, we were able to create and present value-adding functionality to the Global Data department.
I recently accepted a full time offer with Bloomberg and am so excited to return next fall!
Q: What will your full-time role be?
A: I will begin my career at Bloomberg as a Market Data Analyst starting off in the Global Data Training Program. The program begins with a three week classroom training on the Bloomberg terminal, financial markets, customer service and the technology that is important to the department. From there, my 20 other peers and I will be on-boarded into our team and be given on-the-job training to learn the skills needed for their role. Team placements are determined by matching your skills, interests, and experiences with the team that would provide the best fit.
Q: Did you enjoy the experience, and would you recommend Bloomberg to other students?
A: Absolutely! I definitely had some reservations going into the internship as I was not sure if this was the sector of the financial industry I wanted to be in. However, I could not have made a better decision. Bloomberg is an extremely strong brand that can have a powerful impact on your personal and professional development. However, it was really more than the brand that made it a worthwhile experience. Bloomberg did a great job providing on-the-job training related to my role and better understanding the financial markets. The experience felt somewhat like a summer camp as I become extremely close to my peers and built many lasting relationships. Outside of our core responsibilities, we also gained exposure to other teams within the department through interactive panels and shadow sessions, attended senior speaker series, participated in community service projects, specialized trainings, and networking events ranging from baseball games to upscale restaurants in New York. Overall, I had an extremely positive experience and it was an honor working with such a talented group of students.
Q: How did your experiences in QUEST tie into your internship?
A: The one thing that is constant at Bloomberg is change. Bloomberg prides itself on finding and implementing creative solutions. Thus, quality enhancement is at the crux of what has kept it ahead of its competitors. Bloomberg is always striving for continuous improvement of the terminal, both with its data and services and the processes that go into creating and maintaining it. The Bloomberg 490H project is a great example. We were working with creating new workflows and translating human labor into technical capabilities. The office environment cultivates a culture of always trying to find better ways of doing things and taking risks on those enhancements.
Jessie Xu
Consulting In Spanish: Rachel George’s Summer Internship
By: Rachel George (Q21)
I think consulting is hard enough without having to do it in Spanish.
This summer I had to do just that while interning with the Social Entrepreneur Corps in Ecuador for two months. The program is an arm of Community Enterprise Solutions (CES), a “social impact innovation incubator and implementation organization” with bases in Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Ecuador. The Social Entrepreneur Corps program is CES’s way to bring socially-minded college students into the field to assist them in supporting and growing local businesses, as well as increase access to important items for peoples’ health. While I was there, the twenty-one other interns and I would go out into rural villages for two weeks at a time, where we conducted free eye exams, sold water filters and reading glasses, and worked on deliverables to assist CES’s long-term projects dealing with financial literacy classes and safer, healthier wood stoves. We also met with local businesses and groups to conduct needs analyses and assist them in with various marketing and financial problems.
I struggled a little with my ability to be useful during this trip, as I think almost other interns did. I was especially frustrated with the barrier that often appeared during our needs analyses, when my feeling of “foreignness” and my Spanish level meant that I often missed pieces of information that the client was telling us. How could I possibly understand all the conditions they were dealing with when I was uncomfortable and only understood 75% of their words? If consulting is about finding the solution that nobody’s thought about, I was having trouble grasping the problem in the first place. And I wasn’t the only one. But as the summer went on, living with our host families began to help us get closer to their frame of mind. I began to approach problems not as a student from Maryland, but as an intern living in Ecuador; it was an exercise in connecting, one that I’m always working on.
This summer was a summer of frustrations, of excitement, of good friends and lots of learning. Now that I’m back home, I miss my host mom and sister. I miss saying “que pase bien” as we walk out of a store, and riding in the back of a truck up a freezing mountainside. I miss the juices made of blackberry and guava and strawberry and even cantaloupe. I already want to go back.
My supervisor said something to us on one of our last days in the field. He’s twenty-seven years old and is from Caracas, Venezuela. After we got back that day, I wrote it down as best as I could remember.
“If you take nothing else from this trip, if you take nothing from the work or even the program, take the experiences you had here, the people you met and the things they taught you.
This trip is about learning that you have a comfort zone… and there’s a reality outside of it. That there are people struggling to live and support their families and thrive everywhere else in the world.
So do something with these experiences you’ve gained here. Don’t just go back to the US and get an office job and forget about them—or do get an office job, but don’t leave these experiences behind. Do something.”
The Internship– Alex March
A staple of the undergraduate summer, internships offer great industry experience and training for students looking to accelerate their career. Many QUESTees enjoy the opportunity, but by the time classes start again the adventure seems a somewhat distant memory. Luckily for Alex March (Q19) though, his internship at Google was captured in this summer’s blockbuster flick, The Internship. For those that haven’t seen The Internship, starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, the movie follows two salesmen whose careers have been torpedoed by the digital age and manage to secure a competitive internship at Google.
Initially hearing about The Internship we knew we had to interview Alex. We even fielded questions from the QUEST community, and Alex was kind enough to sit down with us.
The interview is below–
So you saw The Internship, how well does the movie imitate real life?
Google is a definitely more empowering in real life than it is portrayed in the film. From a work standpoint, although Google is a very collaborative and team based environment, it is certainly not as cutthroat as shown in the film. As far as the culture goes, yes Google is that awesome! Although I do not play Quidditch with my team, we are still part of a weekly basketball league. There are guest lecturers and unique events happening on campus every day. It’s like college 2.0!
How did you go about getting your internship at Google?
Getting both of my internships at Google was no easy task. It took a lot of perseverance and countless hours of due diligence on the company. I decided to search for (and reach out to) various Google recruiters, and fortunately had the grades and experiences to back up my application if they got back to me.
What impactful lessons have you learned during your time at Google?
- Seek challenging projects (they are all learning experiences)
- Meet as many people as possible (everyone is interesting!)
- Become a morning person
- Over-communicate on everything
- Honesty and transparency are the best policies
- Never be afraid to ask questions, reach out to someone you do not know, or ask for help
What is your favorite perk at the Google campus?
THE FREE GOURMET FOOD! Just kidding! I would have to say my favorite perk is the high level of transparency that the Google leadership team has with their employees. I feel that this perk is the foundation of making working at Google feel as if you are part of a greater community instead of just working at another nine to five job. The weekly all hands meeting (TGIF) is quite a unique perk that is next to impossible to find at any other company on Google’s scale.
If you had to choose one, which character would you say you most resemble, Billy (Vaugh) or Nick (Wilson) and why?
I would have to go with Nick. I admire his willingness to learn (especially the new technical skills). Plus, he tied the team together, knew how to positively influence his teammates, and was googley!
Do they Really call you guys Nooglers? Can I call you a Noogler from now on?
Yes, for the first week. No.
Soooo, can you grab an extra Google Glass for me on your way back to College Park?
I’m still working on getting myself a pair!
By Jacob Wilkowsky