Tag: summer internship series

Various Olin students contributed to this post.

Earlier this summer, we shared the stories of six MBA ’22 students and how their Olin education set up them up for success. Today, we’re back with three MBA ’22 students and one BSBA ’22 student. Whether they’re working in marketing, finance or logistics, the foundational skills they learned at Olin have prepared them for the job ahead.

How did your Olin education prepare you for your internship?

“At Schnucks, I work with the Communications team. Our team has a hand in every single department and the dissemination of information both internally and externally. Coming from a background in journalism, Olin offers me many brand-new learning opportunities. Within my internship, I’m enjoying building on the solid foundation of the FTMBA program. Having the first-year core classes at Olin has prepared me to communicate and strategize more effectively with departments such as Accounting, Finance, Merchandising and Operations at Schnucks and become a more well-rounded businesswoman.”

-Lucy Reis, MBA ’22, communications intern at Schnuck Markets

“I use Olin’s’ value-based and data-driven approaches every day of my internship. At Amazon I’m encouraged to dig deep into data sets to gather insights and invent new creative solutions to solve customers’ problems. Olin’s education prepared me for my internship at Amazon by teaching me qualitative and quantitative analysis frameworks that allow me to deconstruct and analyze business problems in an organized manner. In my current role, I’m using the managerial insights I mainly learned in my operations and strategy courses. [They] allow me to complete my work and to communicate effectively with high-ranking, experienced technical and nontechnical professionals with over 20 years of experience that are even outside of my own area of expertise.”

-Antonio Rivera-Martínez, MBA ’22, senior manager program intern at Amazon

How/what are you taking what you learned at Olin and applying it to your current role?

“The most valuable thing I have applied from my time at Olin to my current role is communication and teamwork. Olin’s curriculum emphasizes team projects, which simulate real work environments that cultivate problem solving and concise communication. Throughout my time at Olin, I’ve had the opportunity to work with different teams, either in extracurriculars or classes. I come out of each team project learning more about working with different people with diverse backgrounds to achieve the best outcome.”

-Daphne Liu, BSBA ’22, business analyst intern at McKinsey & Company

“Building a competitive and marketing strategy with a unique value proposition for a product, building relationships with different stakeholders, and understanding customer problems first and then providing them a solution are some of the things which I learned and apply in my current role.”

-Vaibhav Dabas, MBA ’22, product manager intern at VMWare

To stay up to date with summer internship features, follow along on our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages.

Claire Vogt, MBA ’21, writes today about her supply chain internship at Anheuser-Busch over the summer. She was invited to return to AB full-time after graduation. Her contribution is part of a series by students sharing their summer internship experiences on the Olin Blog.

As an intern at Anheuser-Busch, you are given ownership of real projects with real impact—an aspect of my internship that really set my summer experience apart. With my previous experience in business process consulting and accounting, I was given a challenging project: Creating a universal budget simulator for distributors across North America, incorporating KPI metrics, savings challenges and the different complex pay structures at each distributor.

Ultimately I was able to successfully create the first prototype of the universal budget simulator. The plan is to continue improvements and roll it out across distributors in North America for the next budgeting cycle.

With the switch from an in-person internship to virtual, I knew I’d have to tackle this past summer differently from any of my previous work experience. Without the ability to make an impression in person, it was imperative to be “on my game” when I had the opportunity to present deliverables, meet with team members and join Zoom calls.

A new way of networking

I also made a deliberate effort to reach out to other members of the AB family in order to meet more people and set up Zoom calls to learn more about different roles within the company. Networking was different, but not impossible.

One class that prepared me particularly well for the summer was the CEL Entrepreneurial Consulting class with Doug Villhard, professor of practice in entrepreneurship and academic director for entrepreneurship. Because COVID-19 interrupted our semester halfway through, we transitioned to a virtual setting for class, meeting with our client and delivering final presentations.

My role as team lead (with responsibilities of meeting and communicating with the client virtually and delivering the final presentation via Zoom) was great preparation for owning a project completely remotely at Anheuser-Busch and delivering an impactful final presentation.

Making the most of experiential learning

I also believe that any sort of experiential learning is incredibly valuable as you work through real-world business problems and gain skills to be used further along in your career.

I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to work at Anheuser-Busch this summer and work with such an incredible team. It was especially exciting to work in such an innovative and fast-paced environment during a time when the pandemic was having rapid and constantly changing effects on supply chains worldwide.

Anheuser-Busch is a network of owners with a “challenge accepted” mentality, which became evident as the company was constantly overcoming pandemic-induced hurdles.

For example, distributors now had to be cognizant of pandemic safety protocols that affected their monthly spend and KPIs. Additionally, aluminum shortages, demand forecast fluctuations and increases in off-premises sales made the past summer at AB anything but “business as usual.”

I am incredibly excited to join the AB family full-time after graduation and fully embrace this “challenge accepted” mentality.