Month: October 2015

Many students at Wesleyan have had incredible summer experiences in new and unfamiliar environments, such as while abroad or during an internship. I, however, spent my summer here as a participant in the QAC Apprenticeship program. My time was mainly spent in the Allbritton computer lab – a place where some wouldn’t expect to have a rewarding summer.

I’ve always considered myself a quantitative thinker, but when I learned how to perform data analysis in SPSS, SAS, Stata and R, I found new opportunities to think critically and explore different ways of problem-solving. One of these opportunities was the research project I worked on throughout my time in the program. Working with Professors Jennifer Rose and Pavel Oleinikov, I used R to analyze administrative insurance data and determined factors which affect the probability of a patient being a frequent user of hospital ER services. By the end of the program, I had a predictive model to classify patients as frequent ER users.

I consider myself very lucky to have had the opportunity to gain skills in data software and data analysis, and to be continuing my research project this semester. My summer experience has helped me realize that I want to continue working on data analysis projects after graduating. I strongly encourage anyone with a research topic they are curious about and with an interest in experiential learning to check out the QAC!

This summer was one for the books. During the spring semester, I landed an REU internship through the Minorities in Marine and Environmental Sciences Program with the South Department of Natural Resources in Charleston, South Carolina. For the next 12 weeks, I worked as an undergraduate researcher designing and completing my own independent research project under the guidance of three mentors.

This summer, I worked with three species of parasites in the juvenile eel, Anguilla rostrata. The American eel is a valuable fish species for our commercial fishing industries here in the United States, however, the population has experienced a steep decline since the 1980s. Potential causes include physical obstructions (dams, weirs, sluices) that decrease the migratory success of the eels, water pollution, overfishing, and parasite infection. My project investigated whether parasite infection can affect the climbing abilities of the American eels, and therefore inhibit them from using human-built structures, called eel ramps, that are installed across these physical obstructions to help provide them with less physically demanding swimming routes. Throughout the summer, I ventured out on the field to collect my specimen, tested them with an indoor eel ramp that I modeled and constructed, and performed a necropsy on a total of 136 eels to screen them for parasites.

I was able to gain a huge appreciation for parasites through this internship. Parasites are commonly perceived as ugly, nasty creatures that everyone should avoid, however they are truly fascinating creatures that exploit their hosts in the most creative ways! I also had an amazing experience working with mentors who were incredibly passionate about their work. There were days where we hung out in my mentor’s office for hours on end, nerding out about science. This summer, I was able to incorporate my passion for adventure in the marine research lab and field. I was constantly surrounded by creative, energetic, positive, and passionate people and found new forms of inspiration outside of Wesleyan. When I wasn’t researching, I spent my free time exploring nature in South Carolina and teaching myself how to surf. After I got back home, I ended the summer backpacking the entire Connecticut portion of the Appalachian Trial and spontaneously road tripped around New England before heading back to Wesleyan. My advice to anyone who’s trying to figure out their summer: Apply to as many internships and job opportunities as you can. Go learn something new and be adventurous.

I was fortunate to spend this past summer doing what I love – traveling, volunteering and, of course, working! For the first few weeks, I was in Thailand where I traveled on the weekends and worked full-time during the week at an emerging ecommerce firm. As a data analyst, my primary role was to create business intelligence reports and from my experience, the importance of Microsoft Excel or higher-end data processing tools cannot be overstated if you want to be an analyst of any kind. I also got to meet with a few Wes students and alumni during my trip which was just terrific (as well as my first time meeting Wes students off campus).

After returning to the States, I took a few days off before I began working at a management consultancy firm based out of Philadelphia. This was my first time working for such a company but I grew to love my assignments very quickly and about a month later, I was humbled with an offer to continue working part-time once the school year would start. I have now been with the company for more than four months and plan to continue at least through the calendar year. In my experience, the core skills conducive to success in consulting are research, data analysis and report-writing. The ability to convert fairly vague assignments into concise, meaningful reports, often from scratch, is very highly valued because it is essentially the grunt work that senior consultants don’t want to or don’t have the time to do.

Entry-level consulting is often grueling work, but I was still able to squeeze out some spare time during which I volunteered as a tutor and college admissions mentor primarily for high school students – something which I have also chosen to continue after coming back to school. Of course, not every endeavor was a rosy success this summer – my attempts to learn Mandarin through Coursera have left me with little other than knowing how to count, offer greetings and say some random words which I will probably forget before ever getting a chance to use! But in any case, I think I met or exceeded all of my targets for this summer and I look forward to a terrific (and busy) junior year at Wesleyan!

This past summer, I attended the London School of Economics summer school studying corporate finance and asset-markets. Additionally, in the 6 weeks between the end of school and my departure to Europe I also had the invaluable opportunity to serve as a summer intern at the DL Carlson Investment Group, located in Concord, NH.

DL Carlson is a small wealth/asset management firm (about 10 employees) serving clients primarily in the New England area but also across the United States. On my first day, I met with the firm’s Vice President and we discussed his goal to increase firm’s capabilities in the area of financial planning, specifically retirement planning. For the first half of the internship, my task was to test and evaluate various financial planning software packages and this culminated in a pitch to the portfolio managers with my recommendations.   My work then shifted to assisting in researching financial planning/retirement strategies, with a focus on 401(k) to Traditional/Roth IRA rollovers.

Reflecting back on my experience at DL Carlson, one takeaway was my enjoyment in working in a tight-knit work setting. The team atmosphere encouraged dialogue and collaboration between employees at all times, and also kept the mood from becoming detrimentally serious. However, my greatest takeaway was the importance of the information I was internalizing. Understanding successful strategies in investment management, financial planning and retirement preparation are essential lifelong skills everyone ought to attain before it is too late. I feel fortunate to have been exposed to these topics so early in my life.