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Brent Donenfeld, London Internship Program–Management Track

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Interned as a Governance and Control Analyst at Barclays, Spring 2013

I Learned: From my experience at Barclays, I learned to deal with cultural barriers that exist in diverse workplaces and grew to find cultural differences as competitive advantages.  Additionally, I learned to balance a myriad of professional commitments, as I was enrolled in studies, traveling around Europe and working nearly full-time.

Comparing/Contrasting My Work Experiences: The major difference that I noticed while working abroad was the large amount of diversity that existed in the workplace. I worked with people of different ethnicities, professional backgrounds, and countries of origin which really enhanced my learning experience in the workplace.

Hardest Part: Overcoming cultural differences that existed between the US and UK office place.

Best Part: Meeting life-long friends, traveling around Europe, and refining my professional interests as I look to enter the full-time job market.

Deepika Sud, Geneva Internship Program–Public Health Track

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Interned in Consulting with Global Development–Advising the Leaders, Spring 2013

Internship: I interned at a boutique consulting firm called Global Development-Advising the Leaders which assists various players such as international organizations, non-profits, governments, company and industry alliances, private foundations, and global public-private partnerships to catalyze and develop sustainable global partnerships in international development. Practice areas of the consultancy include global health, food security millennium development goals, corporate social responsibility and social investments. Clients and stakeholders include the World Health Organization, Merck, USAID, the Global Fund, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

My role as an intern included a wide variety of tasks including working with the president on a daily basis on internal briefings and consultancy proposals, participating in conference calls, and facilitating and coordinating planning for a private sector round table discussion at the Global Newborn Health Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. Throughout my time at GD, I had the unique opportunity to work with people from all different organizations and got to see daily, first-hand how these partnerships to improve international development were formed.

I Learned: One major lesson I learned was how to travel practically in foreign countries with people that you may not know. Once I got over the initial confusion of being in a new place, being open-minded but conscious allowed me to make the most of my travels around Europe and exploring within Switzerland as well.

In terms of my internship, one thing I learned was that hard work really pays off no matter where you work. If the people you work with see that you are trying to learn as much as you can and putting in effort, they will appreciate it and take your contributions seriously.

Comparing/Contrasting My Work Experiences: Since the organization that I worked with was so small, one thing that I was encouraged to do was make suggestions to the president herself, which was something that I couldn’t do at bigger organizations. Adjusting to the slower pace of business here was a challenge at first, but it really allowed me to focus and submit my best work, allowing me to spend a bit more time on projects to make sure they were done right.

Hardest Part: The hardest part was budgeting out time and money and trying to prioritize what I wanted to do. However, planning things out as best as possible early on in the program really allowed me to make the most of my time in Geneva and spend my time seeing and travelling to different places with some amazing people.

Best Part: The best part was being immersed in a new culture and seeing just how different things are from the US. It not only opened my eyes to another part of the world but also made me appreciate so much about things back home, both in and out of the classroom.

Will Maness, London Internship Program–Management Track

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Internship doing investment banking for J.P. Morgan’s European, African and Middle Eastern Rates Product Marketing Middle Office, Spring 2013

I Learned: Working at J.P. Morgan and living in London taught me how impactful cultural differences are upon behavior.  I also learned how valuable cultural diversity can be in the work place, especially in Europe.

Comparing/Contrasting My Work Experiences: In my experience, the work place environment in London is more diverse and inviting than similar institutions in the States.  Nevertheless, having worked at this multinational corporation, it was easy to see that the management and tasks were more or less consistent globally.

Hardest and Best Parts: My hardest experience at J.P. Morgan was presenting the culmination of my research and reporting to the New York office. Setting up and executing a meeting with people of significant authority as an intern is a daunting task but also an incredibly gratifying one.  This small success of mine, and the celebration of my leaving with wonderful and supportive co-workers made interning at J.P. Morgan a wonderful experience.