Tag Archives: UT

Internship Spotlight: Cybil Zhang – Chick-fil-A

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Cybil Zhang, a BHP/Finance senior, interned at Chick-fil-A this summer, an experience which she considers “one of the greatest experiences of my life.” Chick-fil-A is a fast-food restaurant chain which specializes in chicken sandwiches and has over 1,600 locations in the US, including one on the UT Austin campus.


How did you find out about your internship?

I found out about the internship through OCR. Chick-fil-A contacted me awhile after for an interview.

What do you think set you apart from other candidates and led to you getting the position over other candidates?

Chick-fil-A strongly believes in “getting the right people on the bus,” and their interviewing process reflects that. From the very beginning, they asked me for my story and genuinely wanted to see if I was a good fit for the internship and vice versa. By conveying my story well, Chick-fil-A was able to see the fit.

What were you doing at your internship?

I was tracking the food miles for Chick-fil-A’s produce to guide a definition for local foods. In addition, I was working on an intern group project for speakerless drive-thrus that was presented to the executive team. Through the internship program, I had the opportunity to learn more about the company through “Lunch & Learns” with key Chick-fil-A staff members, participate in a “Vision & Values” tour of company history, and have dinner at the company president’s house.

What did you enjoy most from the experience?

I enjoyed the relationships I built throughout the internship. Through some conversations, I learned how to better navigate the business world and gained clarity in my professional goals. Through others, I discovered how complex, convoluted, and challenging supply chain and the produce industry are. And through all of these personal conversations, I am becoming more cognizant of my strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities in life.

What were the key takeaways for you?

You cannot build a great company unless you first build up people at every level. Make the personal and professional investment, celebrate together, and grieve together. Do what is right, always; the small decisions create habits that shape big decisions. Pursue excellence rather than success. Seek honest and wise friends who will reveal your blind spots with truth and grace. Approach everyone as if they have an interesting story; it keeps you humble, and you never know what you will learn. Look two-levels up. That person has already successfully maneuvered through the position you want and can offer advice with clarity.

How do you think this internship will help you with your future career goals?

This internship has helped me clarify what I look for in a company and career. I have an expansive network of bright and diverse individuals from this experience who I know will do everything in their power to help me in my career. Chick-fil-A also paid me to talk with a professional for almost two hours about how to leverage my strengths in the workforce.

Annual BHP Community BBQ Starts the Year Off Right

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On Thursday, September 6th, over 100 BHP students gathered at Scholz Garten for a night of good barbecue, good conversation, and good friends. Freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors mingled with each other and with representatives from several BHP sponsors, including Dell, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and KPMG. The event concluded with servings of apple and peach cobbler and a country band playing on the outdoor stage. The event was a nice welcome back to campus and gave BHP students a good start on recruiting for internships and full time offers. BHP Community BBQ has really become a valued tradition- there’s nothing like free food and BHP camaraderie on a warm Texas night. Thank you to all of the students and sponsors who came out, despite the sweltering temperatures!

Internship Spotlight: Samantha Speakmon – Ethics & Compliance for BP

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Internship Spotlight: Samantha Speakmon – Ethics & Compliance for BP

Samantha Speakmon is a BHP/Finance senior who spent the summer working as an Ethics & Compliance Intern at BP, a multinational oil and gas company that is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world.

How did you find out about your internship?

The internship was posted on OCR. I emailed a BHP alum who works at BP because the job description wasn’t a normal corporate finance role. She forwarded me a little more information about the team and I applied.

What do you think set you apart from other candidates and led to you getting the position over other candidates?

I think what really set me apart during my first interview was my genuine interest in the industry. I knew a lot of background information on the energy industry, and I came in with good questions that helped me understand the team’s role in the business. I left that interview convinced that it was the best internship for me. So when I had a second interview, I made sure to communicate my confidence that it was a perfect fit.

What were you doing for your internship?

I was working at BP with the Ethics & Compliance team in the natural gas and power trading group in Houston. The E&C team oversees trading activity to ensure that traders are behaving within external laws and internal policies. As an intern, my big project was an assessment of the main risk areas that E&C oversees, which include risks like money laundering, market manipulation, and misleading communications. I also ran daily reports that looked at BP’s positions in the market relative to the mandatory position limits, which are there to prevent market manipulation.

What did you enjoy most from the experience?

I really enjoyed working on a trading floor; it was a great experience. BP’s “one team” culture was very visible, especially in such a fast-paced and high-risk environment. Everyone was friendly and ready to help out, so I was always able to ask questions and network with people, even if they weren’t in my group.

What were the key takeaways for you?

My biggest takeaway is learning about and actually seeing the extent to which regulatory forces affect and change a trading business. When the penalties of market manipulation can be upwards of $300 million, an Ethics & Compliance department is a valuable line of defense. The group decreases the risk of a regulatory breach by monitoring the positions and communications of traders and adapting the business to new legislation like Dodd-Frank.

How do you think this internship will help you with your future career goals?

I have always been interested in the energy industry, but this internship helped me find a few specific career paths that I would enjoy. There are so many more unique opportunities to use a finance degree than I thought. Since I may want to go to law school, I was glad to see areas where I could use both a finance and law degree.

Internship Spotlight: Josh Hu – Operations and Supply Chain for Amazon.com

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Internship Spotlight: Josh Hu – Operations and Supply Chain for Amazon.com

This past summer, BHP senior Josh Hu worked as a Leadership Operations Intern at Amazon.com in Reno, Nevada. Amazon.com is the world’s largest online retailer and the producer of the Kindle e-book reader.

How did you find out about your internship?

I am a big Amazon fan and at the Fall Career Expo, I stopped and talked to the recruiter to learn more about the different opportunities available at the company. Lucky for me, they said they had a Leadership Operations Intern position available for sophomores and juniors! After a short mini interview on the spot, they told me to drop my resume on McCombs OCR.

What do you think set you apart from other candidates and led to you getting the position over other candidates?

Before the interview, I talked to now BHP senior Karthik Ramachandran and my UBC parent Claire Krucik to learn more about their experiences as interns the previous summer. Going into the interview, I had a pretty good idea of what interns do on a daily basis. I think Amazon really values people who are open and willing to learn new things, and I definitely emphasized during the interview that while I may be young and not know as much as others, I was willing to work hard to learn as much as I could.

What were you doing for your internship?

The internship I did was in operations and supply chain. During the first week, all the interns went through Associate Week, where we learned how to do every single process at an Amazon facility and experienced what it’s like to be an associate.  Throughout the summer, I shadowed area managers and Operations Managers, performed safety audits to make sure that associates were being safe, scheduled carrier appointment requests to bring freight into the facility, worked on different projects, and even led stand up meetings. I honestly learned so much!

What did you enjoy most from the experience?

The thing I enjoyed most from the experience was how I learned something new every single day. In addition, so many people at Amazon were happy to answer any questions that I had. There are many different challenges every day, but that’s what makes it so exciting! At Amazon, there are so many different people from different backgrounds. I really liked getting to know them and hearing their stories.

What were the key takeaways for you?

Give everyone a chance and as cliché as this sounds, don’t judge a book by its cover. I have met people at Amazon who attended Harvard Business School as well as people who only have a high school education. And a lot of times, the person with the high school education knows way more than the person with the MBA from Harvard. People definitely surprise you. Take time to get to know others and listen to their stories.

Be able to deal with uncertainty. Not everything will go as planned, and when faced with any challenge, it is important to take a deep breath and make the decision that you believe to be right at that moment. Even if it is the wrong decision, life goes on, and you learn from your mistakes. Having strong Excel skills can also help you immensely. MIS 301H is definitely useful, and knowing how to write Macros will help you even more!

How do you think this internship will help you with your future career goals?

I think that having a background in operations can help you immensely in finance and accounting careers, which is the career path I am leaning towards. I also learned a lot about process improvement during this internship, which is something that can be applied to any job.

Internship Spotlight: Nicole Cassidy – Securitization Capital Markets Team for Morgan Stanley

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Internship Spotlight: Nicole Cassidy – Securitization Capital Markets Team for Morgan Stanley

Nicole Cassidy, a BHP/Finance senior, had a summer internship at Morgan Stanley in the Global Capital Markets Securitization team. Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm that specializes in securities, asset management, and credit services.

How did you find out about your internship?

As a sophomore, I received an email invite to an information session and dinner with the Global Capital Markets group. I went to the event and learned a lot about Morgan Stanley and Capital Markets. Although I didn’t intern with Morgan Stanley that year, I kept in contact with some of the employees that I met. When it came time to recruit this year, I already had quite a few contacts and knew about the internship. It certainly made the recruiting process much easier!

What do you think set you apart from other candidates and led to you getting the position over other candidates?

A UT grad who works for the division put me in contact with several of his colleagues. By asking questions and listening to various descriptions of job functions and the company culture, I was well-prepared for most interview questions. In addition, I was asked several times during Super Day who I had talked to prior to the interview. I think I set myself apart by being able to show that I had taken the time to learn about the job through various employees beforehand.

What were you doing for your internship?

I was on the Securitization Capital Markets Team. More specifically, I was on the team that issues auto, utility, and mortgage-backed securities. I often created pages and models for client presentations and selling memos for the trading floor. In addition, I also worked to get deals rated by the rating agencies and often revised texts with commentary from the legal team.

What did you enjoy most from the experience?

I really enjoyed being given real projects on a daily basis. I didn’t simply make copies, but instead saw my work actually being passed on to clients and traders. In addition, my team was great about giving me a variety of projects so I could see everything that they do. I had the opportunity to work with a variety of asset classes and was able to discern which I liked better than others. It was also very interesting to discern fact from fiction about Wall Street. Last but certainly not least, I made wonderful friends from this experience and was able to explore New York with them!

What were the key takeaways for you?

Perhaps the biggest takeaway has been the importance of work-life balance. I was working 80-90 hours a week. More than anything, I learned to really enjoy time off (and sleep)! In addition, I learned how to be more detailed-oriented. Almost everything I did was eventually passed outside of my group, so even the smallest details become important.

How do you think this internship will help you with your future career goals?

My ultimate career goal is to be a financial lawyer. Whether or not I decide to actually work in the banking industry first, this internship has opened my eyes to the complexities and opportunities that the industry presents. My team is on calls with lawyers on a daily basis so I have gotten an eye into their daily job functions and the overall career path. In addition, learning the financial language and methodology will be beneficial wherever I end up.