Updated Summer 2015 Internship at Pep Boys
This summer, I am interning for Pep Boys as a Web Analyst at their Corporate Store Support Center located in Philadelphia, PA.
Pep Boys is the leader of full-service and tire automotive after-market chains. It started in 1921 in Philadelphia and it’s headquarter is still in Philadelphia. Pep Boys has over 90 years in the automotive industry and over 700 company owned locations.
Pep Boys is on the way of expanding their digital operation. The automotive after-market is accelerating in its move to the digital world and Pep Boys sees this area as critical to its success. My role at Pep Boys is focusing around the use of web based analytics tools and the development of statistically based reports to support the Marketing and Web Analytics teams at Pep Boys. I track user engagement, user flows and report on user fallouts. I also partner with the Web Analytics and Digital Marketing teams to review web and digital marketing campaign performance and deliver focused Key Performance Indicators (KPI) reporting with actionable data driven recommendations for improvement.
During my internship, I believe that MIS 2502 helps me a lot with my internship. The knowledge of SQL that I learned from this class enables me to work well on different projects that my manager gives me. Working as a data analyst for a retail company, I have to know how to pull out data from multiple tables which contain million transactions records. In addition, pivot table on Excel that I learned from MIS 2502 is also a tool that I have to use a lot.
On the other hand, there is also a big difference between what I have learned in school and what I do at my job. I think I know everything about SQL since I got a good grade for Data Analytics; but I am stuck when I need to use SQL to get more detail information for my project. There are more thing you need to know rather than knowing the syntax. Therefore, I recognize developing my technical skill in a practical level is very important. On the other hand, I believe that communication skill is also important. There are times when a project needs to be communicated through different teams. Being able to communicate well is critical for me to finish my project. Finally, I realized that everybody around me at work is important; especially when I work in cooperate culture.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time here. I have a chance to meet up with many professionals and learn from them. People are nice and the company’s culture is enjoyable.