Category: Student Perspective

This is the next in a series of posts by recipients of the 2018 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they’ve been spending their summer. You can read the entire series here.

This entry is by Bianca Owusu, COL ’20

This summer I had the wonderful opportunity to work in the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory of the Ryan Veterinary Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania. I had originally been looking for a research assistant position for the summer. However, I did not have any true laboratory experience or the proper training to work in a research setting at the time. The veterinary microbiology laboratory offered me the chance to learn the skills I would need to be successful in an investigative laboratory. Taking advantage of this opportunity allowed me to explore my potential career options.  Pursuing a career in research is something I have always wanted to do. Since I did not have any prior exposure to the different fields, I was not really sure what discipline I wanted to be a part of. Although I had worked in the microbiology section of the clinical diagnostic laboratory, I was exposed to the other disciplines. Since many of the samples required various tests from these other laboratories, collaborations were very frequent. The clinical pathology and cytology laboratory was responsible for conducting hematological and cytological analyses. The parasitology laboratory was tasked with the detection and the identification of parasites in the animals we received the samples from. Requests for biopsies and post mortem examinations were sent to the histopathology laboratory. Luckily, I got to experience a sampling of what each laboratory section had to offer while working at Ryan Veterinary Hospital this summer.

            There was a daily routine for the clinical microbiology laboratory. Each day, we would walk in and put on our lab coats. One of us would have to check the CRISPR in the fridge for any samples that had been placed there overnight. We would also do rounds and make sure that the laboratory was stocked with all the necessary materials and media. Batch numbers would be double checked to ensure that the media was in good condition. Next, we would read the plates and record the findings. After recording the findings, we would confirm the diagnosis through a VITEK machine. This summer experience also taught me a lot about the importance of organization in laboratory management. I was trained to use the hospital’s accessioning system. This was helpful in keeping track of all the tests the laboratory was running, printing notes, taking notes, and sending final reports to the veterinarians.

The funding I received from Career Services allowed me to learn so much about myself and the field I eventually want to go into. Working in the laboratory was a major hands on experience. I learned a lot by working under the guidance of the laboratory director and my more-experienced coworkers. In addition to learning about lab procedures and diagnostic test running, I learned what it meant to be a part of a dynamic team. It was an open environment in which questions were encouraged and mistakes were accepted as opportunities for learning. I am very grateful I got to be involved in an eye-opening experience.

his is the next in a series of posts by recipients of the 2018 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they’ve been spending their summer. You can read the entire series here.

This entry is by Susmita Roy, COL ’19/WH ’19

When I arrived this summer in New Brunswick, New Jersey, my first stop wasn’t the apartment, it was a hospital down the street, St. Peter’s. Why here? This is where my twin sister and I were born almost 22 years ago. As we entered the waiting room, my mom teared up a bit and kept telling me how our lives started here, and how 21 years later, life had brought me back here. I didn’t think too much of it as I had spent most of my life in Cleveland, Ohio, where I had moved when I was four and the place I called my hometown. By the end of the summer, I gained a new appreciation for this circle of life, being to learn more about my birthplace while also having a fantastic summer experience.

This summer, I had the immense pleasure of working at Johnson & Johnson for the Consumer Business Development group. There, I spent time in the Mergers & Acquisitions group and focused not only on ongoing deals, but also presenting my own material on possible strategic fits in different categories of skincare, over-the-counter, and in wound care.

To be able to present possible acquisition ideas to my managers, I first had to conduct research and become a mini-expert in each category. Therefore, for the first month of my internship, I mostly read up on trends in each category and sought to find out why they were doing as well as they were. It was fascinating to see how consumer behavior has transformed in the past couple of years and how big corporations like Johnson &Johnson are adapting in order to remain competitive in the field, especially with the rise of small businesses and startups. What especially has helped these small startups however, was the transparency they provided on how the product was created, something that is extremely valuable to consumers who are now educating themselves more than previous generations.

I, of course, hadn’t come to this conclusion by myself. My research, coupled with their strategic plan, provided me the foundation to succeed and be able to present the material in a successful fashion. Compiling what I had learned, I then did research on what companies could be of possible interest to J&J. One of the most impactful presentations I had was in the wound care sector, where I presented on possible natural wound care companies, who were leaders in innovation and transparent with what ingredients they used. One of the companies I found, actually made it to the next round of evaluation, something I was proud of. Overall, this summer was a fantastic experience because as a Biology and Healthcare management minor, I continue to find my place in the healthcare industry. With help from the funding, I was able to take a step in the right direction this summer and find something really exciting and engaging, with the hopes of making a positive impact

This is the next in a series of posts by recipients of the 2018 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they’ve been spending their summer. You can read the entire series here.

This entry is by Carmen Lau, WH ’20

This summer at CariClub as a Product Management Intern was an exhilarating and fast-paced learning experience. CariClub is a B2B SaaS (business-to-business, software as a service) startup that connects young professionals with nonprofits to help them raise money, plan events, and further their impact. Our clients include Fortune 500 companies such as Deloitte, KKR, Morgan Stanley, and more.

My 11-week internship gave me a chance to leverage the fundamental business knowledge I learned in my first 2 years at Wharton and apply it to product strategy so that we can satisfy the needs of our company, customers, and nonprofit partners. I was given a lot of responsibility and autonomy as I oversaw a team of 5 designers and developers to make improvements to our platform and build out new features. I created guidelines for prioritizing product decisions and set and oversaw the execution of an 8-week product roadmap.

One of my main projects during the summer was leading the creation of the world’s first online associate board builder tool for nonprofits. An “associate board” is a group of young professionals who volunteer their time and skills to help a nonprofit. Since it is still a fairly new concept for nonprofits, we built a web application that asks questions about the size, mission, roles, and responsibilities of the board they want to make, then takes their responses to create a personalized charter. This will be critical in raising funding and scaling our service.

But business needs aside, when at a mission-driven company, you always have to think about your purpose and your “why”. So I set a mission statement for the team and wrote it on the whiteboard as a reminder: “Create a product so awesome that every time a user logs on, they become excited about the change they can create in the world.” This was my North Star throughout my internship, and reminded me of the team’s role in the company and the significance of our work. I really believe that our work is centered around helping nonprofits make a bigger impact on their communities, and what I wrote was later adopted as the official mission statement of the team.

Outside of working hours, I got to explore New York City and stayed at a hacker loft in Brooklyn, where I met people from around the world who were photographers, artists, musicians, programmers, travelers, and more. I read design and business books to further develop my skills and foundational knowledge. I was finding fulfillment in my work, and also the community around me in a wonderful city.

Thanks to the support of the summer funding award, I was able to have an incredibly fulfilling internship and summer. Raised by a single mother and the first person from my town to attend Penn, a summer like this for me to pursue my passions would not have been possible without financial assistance. I definitely want to continue working in the tech industry, and look forward to exploring more product-related roles in the future.

This is the next in a series of posts by recipients of the 2018 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they’ve been spending their summer. You can read the entire series here.

This entry is by Hayley Boote, COL ’20

Washington, D.C. truly lived up to the myth of being a swamp this summer — but not in a political sense.  High temperatures and even higher humidity made my internship feel more like the Everglades than just 150 miles south of West Philly. Despite the near constant battle with frizzy hair, my D.C. experience was career-enlightening and exciting. D.C. in general is an exciting place for a young person right now, especially a young person interested in public service and politics. Some of my personal highlights were the 4th of July Celebration on the National Mall, the National Portrait Galleries, and discovering &pizza! Even with the excitement, it was truly my work that amazed me the most this summer.

            The U.S. State Department is known internationally as an organization that furthers US influence and policy goals. An internship at the U.S. Department of State offered me an unparalleled opportunity to work in the federal government in a learning capacity. As an undergraduate majoring in Political Science, this role allows me to gain real public policy experience in the place where U.S. foreign policy is made.  Simply, there is no other organization that can provide such an opportunity for learning.  The chance to work for such a renowned agency, while enhancing my experience in public service and communication, was singularly important for my personal career goals.

During my time at State I worked in the Bureau of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, in the office of the U.S. Diplomacy Center.  The Center is an public/private initiative to inform the American public about the role of U.S. diplomacy historically and presently, through educational programs and a future museum. My office is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, meaning that we are only working for the mission of the U.S. government, not a particular agenda. As a communications and data analytics intern, I built surveys, create visualizations of our engagement data, wrote an foreign policy crisis simulation, facilitated educational programs and simulations, and helped plan a hackathon for college students and young coders.  All of these experiences really changed the game for me professionally; I had never before wrote with HTML or used Tableau, and by the end of the summer I had gained proficiency in skills I had never even known existed.  Even in areas in which I thought I was seasoned, like public speaking, I grew in way I could not have anticipated. Part of my job included facilitating foreign policy crisis simulations with students, educators, and scholars; acting as a chairwoman for a conference with different, feuding stakeholder groups trying to solve an international crisis together.  Keeping teams on track, trying to feed them breadcrumbs to get to a tenable solution,  and helping them to negotiate effectively were just a small part of the 180 minute, life-like simulation.  This experience gave me insight into how people negotiate and how they tried to persuade other teams, which was very unexpectedly valuable piece of my work as a student pursuing a psychology minor. The great thing about working for the federal government is that you are never bored — there is always a solution to a problem that you could be looking for. I learned first-hand this summer the long hours and challenging obstacles that our public servants endure.  The work ethic at State and other similar federal agencies is not commonly known, but was incredibly eye-opening for me. I loved being a part of that atmosphere and community, and the skills I learned only added to an all-around amazing experience.