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.
Nicole Chhabra, Class of 2023 management information systems and finance double major, spent her summer as an analytics intern at Wells Fargo in the Credit Card Retail and Merchant Services Department.
Lerner: How did you find out about this internship? Why did you choose it?
Chhabra: I found out about this internship through an alumnus of the UD Lerner College who works for Wells Fargo currently. I chose this internship after hearing about all the great things the company is doing, as well as hearing about the amazing company culture.
Lerner: Did the coronavirus pandemic impact your internship search and working experience? If so, how?
Chhabra: The coronavirus didn’t impact my search too much because there were still career fairs going on that were virtual. But the coronavirus did impact my working experience a bit. My internship was fully remote so I wasn’t able to have the full experience but, with that being said, Wells Fargo did a great job of keeping all the interns engaged and having speaker events that helped us feel connected.
Lerner: What did you learn from this internship that you think you would not have learned elsewhere?
Chhabra: I learned many things throughout this internship. I enhanced my technical skills by learning how to code with SAS as well as learning how to build machine learning AI models. On top of this, I learned and grew professionally and personally by talking to seasoned professionals, sitting in on team meetings and presenting my findings to upper management. This specific internship taught me so much because I was able to complete a project independently which taught me many important things.
Lerner: What is the most exciting task or project that you have done or are currently doing in your role?
Chhabra: The most exciting project that I worked on throughout my 10-week internship involved data and analytics. I analyzed and interpreted ACH data that brought value to marketing campaign models. I used debit, transaction and campaign data to create an in-depth analysis and created interpretable and insightful data using text mining.
Lerner: What is an example of a time where you were able to apply what you’ve learned at Lerner to your role?
Chhabra: Over my time this summer at Wells Fargo, I used many of the technical and analytical skills that I acquired through some classes that I took at Lerner. I used my public speaking and presentation skills that I also learned through Lerner.
Lerner: How do you think this internship will aid you with your professional goals?
Chhabra: This internship helped me grow immensely. I learned how to code better and also learned about machine learning artificial intelligence models, which was something that I had never been exposed to before. Also, by talking and networking with many seasoned professionals across different lines of businesses, I learned invaluable information about the business world as well as heard some great advice which is something that I will take with me throughout my next endeavors.
Lerner: What are your plans or next steps in your career once your internship is over?
Chhabra: My next step is to have another internship next summer somewhere in the data and analytics space once again. I would like to try something a bit different to broaden my horizons, but overall I loved what I did and this internship only made me even more excited for my future!