1. My STEP project was a three week long internship with Freeda Media in Milan, Italy. While there, my group and I performed a competitor analysis for the United Kingdom and United States markets. We also created a survey that was posted on the company’s instagram to develop a better understanding of company positioning.
2. My understanding of myself shifted in an important way during this project. Going into this project I had a very narrow view of what I wanted to do with my life and what certain jobs consist of. However, as I worked with the different teams at Freeda media I learned so much that broadened my horizons. Originally, I thought I wanted to enter a very quantitative field due to my math major and passions in life. I thought that marketing and social media related jobs would be a borderline nightmare. Now, I understand that I can use my mathematical background in so many unique ways that may be even more interesting than I ever imagined.
3. I would say one event in particular comes to mind. As part of my program we got to meet several different teams at Freeda. On my third day we got to meet the DATI team. Most of the team received degrees in fields such as math, data analytics and cse. They leverage these skills to analyze social media data and create predictive machine learning models for future posts. Coming into this I couldn’t have even imagined such a role and now leaving, I find it genuinely interesting to pursue.
4. This change is absolutely critical in academic, personal and professional goals. The idea that so many new avenues in my future are available is revolutionary. It allows me to take my unique and creative academic classes to expand into different fields. It allows me to take a bit of stress out of my personal life since I don’t have to fight over the same ten jobs and it will allow me to explore jobs that will make me happier. Finally, it will help me professionally in many obvious ways. One not so obvious way, however, is my new experiences will give me much to talk about in interviews and new meetings.
