What was your favorite part about the internship experience?
My favorite part of the internship experience, palpable even in the remote setting, was the engagement with current employees and even senior leadership here at Medidata. At some internships you may find yourself given a list of tasks at the beginning of the week and told to complete them by a certain date, and that is the extent of your internship. Medidata works a lot differently in that you are constantly being checked in on, having meetings with and engaging with your teammates, managers, adjacent teams, and executives to make sure you are getting the most out of your time with Medidata. I definitely credit this hands on and engaging style of learning that Medidata employs to my transition to full time.
How would you describe the transition from working as an intern to working full time?
While I am actually still an intern at the time of writing this, I can speak to my transition to working part time during school and additionally working with the team I was hired full time for. I worked over the summer, and still do, with the Early Talent Attraction Team. Over the summer I helped to rebrand the early talent program and really focus on giving it a personality. With that landing page up and running, I have spent this fall using that established brand personality to create a vast amount of content from other landing pages to alma mater toolkits to articles, social media plans, campus engagements and so much more. This fall, after happily accepting my post-grad offer at Medidata, I thought it would be wise to begin working with the Global Campaigns team to which I was hired, as well. Therefore, while balancing D1 Track at Fordham along with my classes, I have spent three days a week with Medidata working for both Early Talent Attraction and the Global Campaigns team. The transition has been smooth, in large part due to the understanding nature of both of my teams and their effort to always make sure I am managing all of my load well.
Did you have any mentors who helped you along the way?
The corporate culture at Medidata really makes it feel as if every employee is a mentor. Everyone is so eager to see you succeed and learn at the company, which is one of the many reasons I signed my offer letter. If I have to name a few however, my first mentor would definitely be Jill Miller. She was the head of the internship program and my manager as well. She really taught me a lot about Talent Attraction and how to use my “marketing brain,” as she referred to it as, to rebrand early talent. The next person that comes to mind is Erika Singer. She joined halfway through the summer on my team and since then we really have become a duo in all of our endeavors. We meet so frequently and always collaborate on our projects, and she has always had my best interests in mind from the start. Not to mention, she is the one who coordinated getting me an offer with the Global Campaigns team, even though it meant her losing a lot of help on the team. Some other mentors are of course Kalyani Nayaka who presented my offer and has become my boss on the Campaigns team, Danielle Gutkovich, who was hired for the same position as me back in June and has really taught me the little things and eased the transition to her team, and finally Kevin Bauer who was my official mentor over the course of the summer internship program and has answered a plethora of questions throughout the months.
What do you enjoy most about your new role?
While again I am still just an intern and am working for both my new team and my current team, I have gained enough insight into the role to properly answer this question. The Global Campaigns team is obviously far more marketing-focused than early attraction, and it is an opportunity to not only recognize the marketing jargon from my classes, but to actually apply these skills and methods to real world situations. I love the role and team because I have my hands on robust and creative marketing campaigns and I get to help create the content that fuels these important campaigns. I am looking forward to learning more as the months progress and to eventually start my new role!
What advice do you have for recent grads looking to convert an internship into a full-time position?
Be open to growth. I think as easy as this sounds, not enough people are willing to let go of what they expect things to look like or how they expect things to turn out and just open themselves up to new experiences and learning opportunities. Especially in today’s world with the pandemic and such rapid changes all around us, I really think being adaptable is a great asset you can bring to the table whether at an interview, an internship, or when looking for that full time conversion.