Where can I intern? 4 EBA students share their experiences

We talked to a few Economics & Business Analytics (EBA) students about recent internships they completed through the program and their experiences in each. PHC employs an apprenticeship methodology, meaning that there are a certain number of internship requirements that all students must fulfill in order to graduate. This way, they commence with both a robust academic background and also practical, hands-on experience and connections! 

Senior Inge Van Belle worked last summer as a Financial Analyst Intern for the Aerospace Corporation, a federally-funded research and development center that provides technical expertise on national defense projects for organizations including the NRO, USAF, and NASA. She worked 9-hour days, sometimes remote and sometimes in the Aerospace tower in Chantilly, Va., and her tasks included workwing through an analytics software course, completing Tableau projects, and reviewing strategy power points.

“My favorite part of the summer was flying out to The Aerospace Corporation's headquarters in Los Angeles, Ca., to take a Space Systems course, tour their launch control center and prototype laboratory, and meet rocket scientists,” she said. During her internship, she also met a guy who worked on the James Webb Telescope and a thermal engineer who escaped the USSR as a child. 

Van Belle said that her experience with the Patrick Henry Investment Group (PHIG) impacted her the most by placing her around amazing people and giving her an opportunity to build an organization. “PHIG is not paid, not for credit, and has minimal faculty oversight, so students have to be self-motivated to make a strategy and implement it throughout the organization,” she said.

Sophomore Ben Spivey is interning this semester for Patomak Global Partners, a consultancy firm that advises companies in the financial sector on how to navigate the regulatory environment. “My role is a Strategy Compliance Intern, which just means I support analysts and senior-level executives at the company in research, PowerPoint deck creation, and general background on issues that they’re dealing with,” he said. Patomak’s experience with previous PHC interns made it easier for him to get the position.

Spivey commutes into D.C. twice a week, and a typical day includes researching companies, creating PowerPoint decks, and writing briefers. Like Van Belle, he noted how PHIG prepared him for his role. “Working with PHIG gave me the financial knowledge to be able to deal with a lot of the issues that Patomak is concerned with,” he said. “Particularly with working with the banking sector or securities, it’s been helpful to have that background knowledge that PHIG provided.”

Senior Isabelle Alessi worked in France this past summer as a Sales and Marketing Intern for Deeplink Medical, a medical software company. She translated documents, helped with their website, and researched potential clientele and American competitors. She researched in English, but all her conversations were in French, and she enjoyed talking to co-workers during their long lunch breaks.

“I love living in France. I was so happy!”  Alessi said. She received the offer for this internship the same time she received an offer from an internship in D.C., and she planned to accept the D.C. internship until a missionary in France offered her a place to stay. “It was definitely a gift from the Lord,” she said. If God provides another opportunity, she would like to return to France. 

Alessi said that PHC, and especially Civic Debate, prepared her by teaching her to take a topic she knew nothing about and understand it enough to articulate in a few weeks. PHIG also prepared her by teaching her how to do an industry overview and helping her understand investment relations.

Senior Hannah Davidsmeier worked this past summer as an Inventory Control Analyst for Uline, a distribution company. “The internship related to EBA because I was able to learn and apply data analytics to optimize the efficiency of the company,” she said. She used programs including Sequel and Excel to keep track of inventory in the warehouses. “Statistics was the class that did the best to prepare me in terms of actual skills,” she said. Many EBA classes also focus on the big picture of business in addition to skills.

Each day, she monitored warehouses’ scorecards, which tracked damage and how well they kept track of items. If they reported damage, she would contact that manager. “I’d reach out to them and say, ‘Hey, what went on with this? Was this item fixed? Is it still damaged? Did you have to toss it? How much did the damage cost?’” 

Davidsmeier applied to about 50 internship positions last spring, and most of them rejected her. “The reason I got that internship is because I reached out in person,” she said. She sent a personal message to the HR recruiter on LinkedIn. During her interview, they told her she wasn’t the most qualified of the candidates, but they liked her excitement and interest in the company, and they thought they’d enjoy working with her. 

Davidsmeier said that PHC prepared her by helping her maintain a solid worldview. “A lot of the people I worked with were not Christians and what they cared about was earning money for the sake of earning money; it wasn’t Christ-focused,” she said. “PHC really helped me to recognize that and distinguish it from my own worldview.”

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 Patrick Henry College exists to glorify God by challenging the status quo in higher education, lifting high both faith and reason within a rigorous academic environment; thereby preserving for posterity the ideals behind the "noble experiment in ordered liberty" that is the foundation of America.