Each summer, students from the University of Delaware’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics gain valuable professional-level exposure through internships. This year, young scholars were able to traverse the complications of the COVID-19 pandemic by pursuing an array of internships, externships and other professional development opportunities. Each profile of this series will detail a Lerner student’s experiences working on business-oriented projects.
Cornelia Dewi Soelaiman, Class of 2023 finance major with a minor in business analytics, spent her summer conducting independent research and pursuing career development opportunities.
Lerner: What did you do this summer to develop readiness for your future career?
Dewi Soelaiman: I conducted independent research under the guidance of Professor Desmond Toohey through the Undergraduate Research Program’s Summer Scholars to examine if risk tolerance can evaluate asset allocation under different phases of the business cycle. Aside from Summer Scholars, I participated in the 2021 Virtual Summer Job Shadow Program and the Lerner Careers on Wall Street Program.
Lerner: Did the coronavirus pandemic impact your summer plans? If so, how?
Dewi Soelaiman: The coronavirus did not impact my summer plans since the Summer Scholars program was set to be virtual for this year.
Lerner: What did you learn through this experience that you think you would not have learned elsewhere?
Dewi Soelaiman: I learned that individuals are willing to take financial risks because they can withstand the risk. In addition, I learned more about the R software as I learned about merging data sets, subsetting data sets and creating dummy variables on R.
Lerner: What is an example of a time you were able to apply something you learned at Lerner to your efforts?
Dewi Soelaiman: I learned about logistic regression from MISY262 and I applied what I learned there to my research project. Since I learned how to use the R software from MISY262, I was able to use R to analyze data.
Lerner: What did you do this summer outside of professional development, just for you?
Dewi Soelaiman: I have been learning Korean grammar and vocabulary through K-Pop, Korean variety-reality shows and dramas. I have also been cooking and preparing different types of food and because of these, I am now used to the taste of raw tomatoes and I can enjoy eating raw tomatoes on their own.