Laurel Miller

Artemid Leskaj
To work in a business environment one has to know how to communicate with a variety of people. One of the most important skills to have in business is communication skills. When I worked at FIS I had conversations with a variety of employees and customers. They ranged from a regular employee all the way up to the executives. I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with senior directors at FIS and it’s wonderful employees/customers. Working in a building occupied by one of our customers gave me the opportunity to speak with that companies CEO and CFO. Having a conversation with an everyday employee is different then speaking with an executive officer. Networking with executives is also very beneficial. My network grew tremendously after working at FIS.
A technical skill that I found out to be really important was knowing your way around a printer. I never knew how complex some printers could be. It was difficult at first, but I got the hang of it. Getting acquainted with IT specialists helped me in the process of learning my way around those complex printers.

I find that one of the most important skills is the ability to take a specific technology and describe it in business terms to people who don’t use it. Being able to bridge the gap between technology and the business allows both sides to be on the same terms and make decisions that work with each other, rather than making decisions that won’t necessarily work because they don’t understand how the business or the technology works. I personally try to have anyone who specializes in something on my side. For example, I needed help many times from a SharePoint architect a few months ago so it was helpful to be able to call up someone who specializes in SharePoint to get answers and help regarding a project I’m working on.

While working at IMS, I realized the most important skill I need to improve is communication. The majority of the projects I work on for IMS are done remotely, so any questions from internal or external stakeholders of the project need to be communicated expertly and effectively through email. One issue I encountered while working for IMS is that from an emotions viewpoint written communication can be interpreted differently. If I was speaking to whomever in person the tone of my voice and the matter of which I was speaking would be a clear indicator of my emotion, however when communicating through email emotions can be misinterpreted. I want to improve my communication skills by increasing my industry knowledge and use of business verbiage and try to communicate like a subject matter expert while not having emotions misinterpreted.

Working on different projects it’s important to have internal stakeholders or team members on my side. Any questions or concerns about a problem can usually be addressed and solved without interrupting my supervisor.

One of the most important skills I have learned at Computer Services is the importance of constant communication. Whenever I’m having trouble with a project, or even if I’m finished a project, I have to be sure I keep in communication with my managers about it. Sometimes I struggle with being comfortable approaching the rest of my team, especially if they seem busy. However, it is important to keep in contact, so that projects can continue to move forward. I’m glad that I work in a casual work environment where I feel comfortable talking to my higher-ups about struggles I have with my work.
One skill that I didn’t have that my internship helped me acquire is the importance of reading errors and error messages. Before I started at Computer Services, I would quickly disregard errors almost as quickly as I closed pop-up messages. The management team has taught me how to read errors, and find solutions easily through what they say. This is a huge skill that really help me think more analytically. Delving deep into error messages in an essential step in building working solutions.
Someone I want on my side during my internship is my coworker Nick. He has a longer history of development than I do, and is always willing to shed some insight on any issue I have. His knowledge has been very helpful.

I would say the most important skill that I need for my job is computer skills (specifically Excel). I am basically on Excel the entire workday, and it is absolutely necessary to be able to complete my job. People always told me how important Excel was in the business world, but I didn’t realize it would be this important until now. Another skill that I developed and that I think is necessary is being able to communicate with co workers via email. Email is the main form of communication for my job and it is vital to be able to properly use and also speak correctly when writing an email.

I would say that the person that I discovered that I want on my side is the IT department. Considering we have relatively older computers, employees are constantly contacting the IT department for assistance. This is why it is very important to have them on your side because if you submit a claim then they will not hesitate to fix your problem as soon as they can. I actually sit very close to one of the IT analysts and we have a good relationship so he always comes and helps me as soon as I have a problem with my computer.

I believe the most important skill for that I have gotten from this job, and life in general is good communication skills. Without clear and precise communication it doesn’t matter what your line of work is, you will most likely fail. I have seen too many of my fellow interns at school district be assigned a project, have it explained to them, and then still be unclear on what exactly they are supposed to do. They then are afraid to sound stupid by going back up to their superior and asking for them to clarify, and instead they will do the work how they interpret as they go along and more often than not it is wrong, and that entire time spent working on the project has gone to waste. Seeing others fail in the communication department has made me aware, and now I’m not afraid to go to my boss, and ask for a second of his time just so he can clarify with me exactly what it is I need to do. Even if it is a stupid question, I would much rather ask a stupid question now and fix the problem than eventually have him ask me for a completed project, and all I have to offer him is an excel or access sheet made at my own discretion not fitting any of the criteria he needed.

I think the most important technical skill I’ve learned is how to navigate and pull data from Salesforce.com. I haven’t even scratched the surface of the Salesforce capabilities, but mastering data collection and analysis has been key to my success on a variety of projects. Without the help of a Drexel co-op who I worked closely with, I would’ve never figured it out on my own. There are so many intricacies to Salesforce that it was nice to have someone who had my back and could teach me each step of the way. That was a skill I never even thought about needing, yet I absolutely need it and continue to learn and grow my knowledge on the platform. From a personal standpoint, I learned that it is important to be easy to work with and helpful when someone on the team comes knocking. Even if the person doesn’t report to your same boss, but is still loosely connected to the team, it’s important to fulfill their requests, pending supervisor approval of course. If you make it easy for people to come get quick answers, resources, shipping info, etc., they’ll make it easy for you when you have a request from them, and day to day tasks will get more efficient. Finally, I’ve found that it’s vital to have someone, or a few people, on your side from Finance for when the SOWs and SLAs come in and you need approvals. If you don’t have a friendly face to go to in Finance, getting signatures, approvals, payment info, etc. can be difficult and intimidating.

During my internship I have learned that the most important skill is communication. Because my internship is part-time there is a lot of work or projects that I may start or work on but will be finished by someone else when I am not there. Because of this I always keep notes and update my manager at the end of every day so that we are on the same page with progress.

My internship has not only allowed me to use my analytical and technical skills to perform at my best level, but also develop strong business acumen. Coming from MIS background I am quite comfortable in using the technological and analytical tools, but the most important skill that I have received is my ability to communicate with different stakeholders of the business. I regularly communicate with our suppliers, contractors, and financial institutions. During the past month I have actively involved in executing multiple projects that would not only increase the revenue, but also increase the brand awareness of the business. I have had the opportunity of meeting representatives from financial institutions such as: Chase Bank, Unity Bank, Wells Fargo, and TD bank. In addition I have had lunch with officials from Cherry Hill county office. In conclusion, I am enjoying my role of a non-traditional operations analyst which has given me more than just punching numbers in the computer.

The most important skill that I have developed in my internship is choosing the appropriate tool for sales analysis. This is something that I have gotten much better at with time. Our department has access to a large amount of data in many different databases so much of my job consists of figuring out what data to use and where to find it. This skill is invaluable and can be transferred in other position within and outside of the company. My skills in excel are also very important and are much stronger than when I first started at Subaru. When starting at my internship, I was assigned a “mentor”. My mentor has been very helpful throughout the internship so far. She has taught me a lot about the job as well as about people within the organization. She knows many people in the organization and is someone I want on my side.

I began my internship this past summer before the Fall ’15 semester. Over that time, my supervisor assigned me a project where I would build a web page from scratch using HTML, CSS, jQuery, and PHP with the understanding that I had no coding experience. By the end of the summer I had a firm foundation in each, which not only prepared me for the MIS 3501 course but has been very useful in my job. A former intern who now works full time at Subaru with me has a very strong coding background, and I often go to him for hands-on help. He has been a fantastic point of reference for my most recent (and so far, most involved) project.

PowerPoint is an incredibly important and useful skill that I have been able to hone over the past few months at Cigna. I’ve done a lot of important work, and typically work is showcased at meetings via some time of presentation. Being able to convey information about a project succinctly in a way that is aesthetically pleasing is a skill that takes time to practice and perfect. If there’s one skill that I’m going to absolutely need in the coming months, it’s the ability to code my own applications. I’ve already written a few applications for Cigna, but having more exposure to writing code and developing that skill will help me greatly. I have a single manager, but I work on a team of 9 individuals (including myself). Having all of them on my side would be extremely helpful, because these 8 other individuals together touch every single area of IT at Cigna. Having strong relationships with these people will help me to network around the organization and learn everything I need to learn.

It took me three weeks to get hooked up to a printer. Typically at Cigna you get assigned a “routing” which which describes where your desk is located, and you automatically get set your account set up with a printer that corresponds to that routing. However, I was given the same routing as my manager, which seems sensible, but my manager actually works in Bloomfield, CT, so for a while I was printing things and they were appearing in Connecticut. It took several weeks for me to get the approvals to use Philadelphia printers.

One of the most important things i had to find out on my own during my internship was contacting our IT department. During the summer, one of my network drives wasn’t appearing on my computer. I noticed that on my work phone there was a number to call IT, so i called that number and had to go through a process to place a ticket with the IT department. This is not something that they showed us in orientation, but it is definitely a useful tool that I found out about on my own. Another important thing I found out on my own was how to use the printer/scanner/fax. It was one of those very large and confusing printers, so it took a week or two to figure it out completely on my own. There was also printer etiquette that I had to quickly pick up on, so I did not slow up or annoy any of my colleagues if they were in the middle of printing something.

I’ve been very lucky during my time at Comcast to be surrounded by people who are always willing to help answer questions, offer guidance and mentoring, and reset me in the right direction when I’m “lost” in finding out how the business world really works. When I first started, I couldn’t figure out how the elevators worked for at least a week. There are 4 elevator banks, each only servicing certain floors in the building. Luckily, with some trial and error and some help from other interns, I found my way. After I was with the company for a few months, a new intern was hired and I got to teach her how they worked too. As far as company culture goes, I learned that it is customary to call everyone by first name, and it is acceptable to reach out to VP level employees and below with questions. SVP and above should be contacted through their assistant. That was a big change for me! I still don’t know everything, however, and recently I was in need of cleaning supplies while I was reorganizing and cleaning the storage closet on our floor that we use for computer/iPad storage, marketing materials, etc. I used our employee portal to find the facilities request and was taken care of quickly. Learning new things every day!

I am fortunate to have a boss who is very friendly and willing to introduce us to many different people at Subaru headquarters. Since the summer, I have had the opportunity to meet many people in every department of the company. The company culture at Subaru is relaxed especially compared to other car manufacturers (from what I’ve heard). Generally, everyone is friendly and willing to lend a hand in any way possible. My department, Field Operations, works closely with requests from the executives so we are on a first name basis with these individuals. The COO of Subaru, Tom Doll, is very down-to-earth and embodies the company’s culture in his role. I enjoy the work environment at Subaru very much.

Artemid Leskaj
When I started working at FIS I was so pleased to see how welcoming everyone was. I was immediately introduced to the team and taken around the company to see where things were. I liked how FIS had their own Keurig 3000 coffee machines (I remember the name because I used it quite frequently), lounge, cafeteria etc. for people to go to during their free time. At FIS i was provided with a login account to access the computers. I worked on learning how to use it on my own. I was also provided with an access card to the building. To go anywhere you would need one of these cards. I used the card to travel around and about. If there was a problem somewhere in the building the card would grant me access to that area. You always had to scan to enter anywhere. FIS also had these high tech printers that were pretty complicated at first. If there was a problem with them I had to go and fix it. I quickly learned how to work with these printers because I wanted to be ready in case something were to occur.

Most departments at IBC held multiple interns in each department when I started, but I was the first intern my department had ever had at IBC. This meant that for the first few days I was busy trying to figure out most things on my own or asking people how to do things. For example, I believe there are a total of 20 or so elevators at IBC and each set goes to a specific set of floors, so you might have to go to a specific elevator to get to the 23rd floor, and then find the next elevator shaft to get to the 44th floor. Furthermore, in health care there is a huge amount of acronyms used on a daily basis. For most people working there, they understood all of them because that is what they were used to, but I had no idea what any of them meant when I first got there so I was constantly looking up new acronyms. Luckily I caught on pretty quick and everyone around me was willing to help me find whatever I needed.

Day one things got rolling quickly, I was set up with a computer, log in information, designated phone and assigned number, email information, and lots of paper work to fill out. USI Affinity wasted no time in getting me set up but I quickly learned that there was no formal internship training since I was the first intern that USI Affinity had hired. Being the youngest individual in the office and lacking a structural program I asked many questions, learned quickly, and made an attempt to be involved in every project I could be. That meant I had to request to shadow other staff members in different departments and joining up on projects that were outside my comfort zone. The most important value I learned is that everyone who assigns you a task will state it is important and needs to be completed immediately. Then you have to prioritize based on the position title of the individual assigning the task.

While working at IMS, I can do a majority of the work remotely from where ever there’s internet access. So most of the time I don’t need to go into the office unless it’s a new assignment and my boss wants to sit down and explain the objectives. While working at home my account password notified me, that my account was going to expire unless I updated and changed my account. So I went and changed my password and didn’t realize or know I needed to be on-site to change the password. Not sure why but I guess for security purposes. When I changed my password off site it locked me out of my computer and I ended up having to go in and call tech support. Which was very helpful and fixed the issue very quickly. As far as finding the bathrooms or other company culture during initial training everyone was very helpful in explaining where the bathrooms, break-rooms, lunch-rooms are and what the policies are for how long or when you can take lunch or a break etc…

Firstly, being a family owned business the culture at the store is highly personal, and involves building relationships and trust. My first week at the store included making the owners comfortable with me. Secondly, the computer systems used for inventory management and making purchase order did not require any password, anyone was able to login to the system. I convinced the owners to allow me to install security features that would help the secure the store’s privacy in the long run. Lastly, the locations of the office, bathroom, and break room were some of the important things that I had to find on my own as an operations analyst.

One of the more important things that I’ve had to learn on my own, and never really put much thought into before starting my internship was where to go for my one hour lunch break. The Food Services Department usually provides a small cart of new foods they are trying out in multiple schools, but that always runs out fast. Luckily, being located on Broad Street right near Spring Garden there are quite a few locations that are with in walking distance to the School District Headquarters that have good eats! There are many small pizza places and Chinese restaurants, but so far my favorite spot I’ve found to go would have to be Bain’s Deli. Nothing beats a good hoagie at a 10% discount for showing your student ID!

I had to learn and adjust to the culture at SAP on my own. The culture of the company has been one of the most pleasant surprises. SAP is a German company, like most european companies, they have a great work/life balance. The work environment gives off a completely different vibe than the America based companies I have interned before. At SAP, almost everyone enjoys their job and buys into the company goal; most importantly, everyone has a life outside of work. At SAP, everyone is on a first name bases, and seem to have a more personal relationship with those they work with. This was something I was not use to at first, since then it has turned into one of the highlights of my SAP experience.

I was surprised by the level of camaraderie among among employees and their bosses. Although I didn’t expect attitudes to be standoffish, I thought that the hierarchy of roles within the department would matter more in personal relationships. At first, I was very guarded with my supervisors because that’s what I assumed the relationship to be, but now I have a much more direct line of communication with them.

I currently work at Independence Blue Cross as an Operations and Support Government Markets Intern. I began in June of 2014 where I started as a Business Process Improvement Intern. I was responsible for designing and creating a SharePoint site through the use of HTML, CSS, and PHP for the department, and when complete I transitioned to Operations and Government Markets to design a new SharePoint site based on the needs of the department. Currently I am in charge of the maintenance and addition of new features on the site, ensuring that items are easy to access and that the design is easy to follow for new users.

I am working for the Imaging and Workflow team at Temple University’s Computer Services department. I have been working here since July 2014. Currently, I am responsible for modifying existing programs that automatically import documents for different departments across Temple. This involves mostly working in Visual Basic to help automate the process of getting the documents to where they need to go. This week I’ve been working on a program for the Admissions department, and it is almost good to go.

I currently work at Yoh Services as a contract Data Steward for IMS Health. I starting working as a Data Steward July of 2014 on a three month contract, and after the contract expired I was brought on part-time to work during school. While working at IMS, I have contributed to a number of Master Data Management(MDM) projects for various Pharmaceutical clients. Projects I’ve worked on have mostly been using Excel and researching IMS internal databases for quality check/data governance efforts to provide the client with a best match resolution. I started work a few month’s ago on another MDM project in which my manager and I are developing the standard operating procedures and would eventually have me as the project lead for this portion of the project. I look forward to continuing to improve and learn from the Data Steward position at Yoh Services.

Artemid Leskaj
My place of work was at FIS, one of the fortune 500. It’s quite an honor working for such a large company. I gained a lot of experience of how the corporate world worked. During my time at FIS I worked as an infrastructure engineer. I dealt with a lot of everyday problems, those including fixing and/or upgrading or working directly with FIS’s clients. Here is where I gained a lot of customer service skills as well. The building where FIS was located was also occupied by one of its clients. Whenever there was a problem I would personally go and fix it. I dealt with clients who had hardware and software problems, considering my major it made it a great experience.

I am currently employed as an operation analyst at Cherry Hill Liquors located in Cherry Hill NJ. I have been working here for a year now. My job responsibilities include analyzing unstructured data to forecast customer-buying trends. I use advance Microsoft Excel functionality such data analysis tool pack, pivot tables, v-lookup etc. to perform detailed analysis of customer behaviors of various demographics such as age, ethnicity and physical location. I prepare a biweekly analysis report of customer buying patterns, and use it to establish the price-point for the products. I am also responsible for reconciling expenditure on inventory and perform routine maintenance on store as well as updated Point of Sale System Systems.

Pushpinder Multani

I am currently working at Comcast in the Comcast Business division in Philadelphia, PA. I began working for Comcast Business in May of 2013 and will continue working as an intern until graduation this May. I have been given the opportunity to work on a variety of projects, including sales and marketing effectiveness analysis using Salesforce.com and a variety of Excel-based analytics. I also provide weekly reports with Excel graphs and tables to senior management outlining sales growth broken down by region, division, etc. I look forward to the possibility of staying onboard with Comcast Business upon graduation.

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I am currently working at Trion Group, an employee benefits brokerage firm that is a subsidiary of Marsh and McLennan Agencies. I started working at Trion this past summer as an underwriting intern in the Life and Disability department. I am currently working part time there during the school year and am working there full-time after I graduate in May. As an underwriter, it is my job to price insurance rates based on previous experience of a group. The average day for me at my job revolves mostly around Excel. I am constantly using Pivot Tables to help me better understand and analyze data. I also have been using SharePoint a lot recently. When a client’s plan is up for renewal, insurance carriers will try to bid for our clients business. Insurance carriers will place all the necessary documents onto SharePoint and we will go in there and grab them. I am excited to graduate so I can concentrate more on my career and gain more responsibility within my position.

I’m currently working at Cigna on the Enterprise Architecture Infrastructure Architecture team. My work is project based, and currently I’m working on a project that aims to consolidate all of Cigna’s data from disparate systems into one searchable repository. There’s some development work, a lot of networking work, and a lot of business analysis-style work. I’m the owner of the user interface aspect of the project, which means I am in charge of managing the resources for this portion of the project. As the Spring continues, I will also begin work on some other projects that are scheduled to run through this Summer and Fall.

I am currently working at Subaru of America, Inc. in Cherry Hill, NJ. I began working at Subaru in May 2014 as a Field Operations Intern. The internships lasts for a full year so I will end the position in May 2015. Since starting at Subaru, I have had the opportunity of working on a wide variety of projects that involved many different departments in the company. The Field Operations department deals with sales on a national level. Much of the work I do involved sales analysis and reporting using Excel, JD Power Pin Explorer, and Polk Insight. On a weekly basis, I study the retailer purchase and service satisfaction survey results as well as the traffic that took place within the retailers on a national basis. I am hoping to secure a position with Subaru of America after graduating in May.

Hi everyone, I am currently interning at SAP America as a Global Services Delivery intern. I have been and will continue to work on the SAP Global ONE Service Implementation Methodology. ONE Service is essentially the roadmap for implementation used by our sales and support team. My duties include updating the WBS database, enhancing the SAP Jam site and updating our PMI implementation courses. I will also be taking on other responsibilities and projects throughout the semester.