COVID put a damper on the second half of junior year, just as it affected us all. I was grateful for the ability to move back in with my parents, and for my previous summer’s experience with online classes. Life still wasn’t easy—I still miss going to church, playing tennis, and getting lunch with friends—but these made the transition into quarantine that much easier. I am also thankful that my internship was converted to a remote experience; I was able to work during the day and spend time with my family and boyfriend in the evening and on the weekends.
My People Analytics Internship at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago was an absolutely amazing experience that helped me grow in so many ways. I was blessed with having one of the best teams I have ever been a part of. My manager and two teammates encouraged me every day to ask questions, push myself in new challenges, reach out to new people, and develop myself professionally and personally. They were truly invested in my learning and development, and for that I am grateful. They taught me hard skills, like how to code in SQL and how to use the data visualization software such as Tableau (check out my first public visualization here), but more than that, they taught me the importance of work-life balance and collaboration, especially in this time of quarantine. They also had me take a Kolbe Assessment, a strengths finding psychological test that has been scientifically proven to measure an individual’s problem solving style. I am 7-5-6-3, which means that first and foremost, I am a fact finder. That is, I need all the facts before I come to a conclusion. I see this in the way I approach social justice issues and politics more broadly. Secondly, I am a modifier, which means that I am very adaptable; as plans change and obstacles arise, I modify plans to best fit the situation. Thirdly, I like to maintain the way things are organized. Finally, I am an envisioner, which means I like to conceptualize things abstractly with presentations and pictures (that also means I should not be trusted to operate or fix hardware). I am grateful to the Fed for enabling me to apply my research with the Brauer Lab to develop a real Bank solution. For context, the research I do for the Lab is about promoting and encouraging inclusive behaviors using social norms. This means that instead of a traditional diversity training, which we see is often unproductive or counterproductive (Paluck 2009), our lab predicts that making inclusive behaviors “popular” or normative will best decrease prejudiced behavior and improve the climate on campus, in a company, or within a community. I worked with two other amazing interns, Amr H and Gabe M, to develop and pitch a social norms intervention at the Fed. Although we did not win (our presentation was too academic and not entertaining enough according to subsequent feedback), we were heard by quite a few people, including the Diversity and Inclusion team. As Gabe stated at the end of the project, “I just hope [the Fed] can use our idea for good.” One of the biggest growths I developed from that internship was my love for data analytics. For the first time, I truly lost myself in creating dashboards in Tableau Desktop and restructuring data in Tableau Prep. It was the perfect way to combine my graphic design skills with my inductive ability to find patterns and trends in a large data set. With this new data direction, I networked hard this summer, both at the Chicago Fed and beyond. I have been more and more involved with Tableau and data science communities, particularly in Madison. I am leveraging connections—new and old—to learn more about data analytics and the opportunities that are out there. Two aspects of job hunting I am still working on are location and industry. In the former case, I have to ask myself the same question I was asked when choosing a university: where can I see myself living for the next 5 years? The answer to this seems simple. I love Madison, and could very well live there for at least another 5 years. However, Madison is my comfort zone; I know nothing about living elsewhere, particularly in a big city like Chicago or Vancouver, so if an opportunity comes up, would I turn it down because of its location? I hope to keep an open mind as I navigate the full-time world. The second question I need to ask myself when job hunting this year is what data do I like to study? I loved working with people data at the Fed. How employees are feeling should matter to any company, and the better an organization can quantify that experience, the more impactful its data analysis will be. However, I don’t want to pigeon hole myself into HR just yet. I would love to explore the other ways I can use data to understand the motivations and consequences of human behavior. I have some ideas in mind: insurance, financial services, and economic consulting firms would be on the top of that list. I am looking to my UpperHouse Fellowship this year to provide some answers to these questions. The fellowship sounds a lot like the Center for Religion and Global Citizenry, which I continue to work for as digital coordinator, but it is interdenominational instead of interfaith. Its goal is to bring Christians together to think about their vocational careers in light of their faith. I hope this adventure is fruitful and enlightening. I am excited to use this strange and virtual senior year to explore myself and my career opportunities, and I cannot wait to update you on my progress!
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Emma Laiis a college senior majoring in Economics (Math Emphasis), Psychology, and Religious Studies. Archives
September 2020
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