what I did this summer COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog

what I did this summer COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog Internship in Country Risk Management at J.P. Morgan Prior to attending SIPA my experience was in banking; however the reason I chose SIPA for my graduate studies was to transition into a role that offers more of a macro and international picture, allowing me to work in a field where macroeconomics, capital markets, and risk meet and of course a role where I am challenged every day and get to learn and apply my skills. I had the chance to work in Country Risk Management (CRM) at J.P. Morgan during the summer. It all started with three representatives visiting SIPA to host an information session in the fall of 2013. What followed was an application process, consisting of four phone and four in person interviews.   I consider myself fortunate that I received the opportunity to be a part of the team and the culture at the bank, because this is a dream job for a SIPA student. It was a 10 week internship, starting in June with a couple of weeks of training. The first week I was part of the Sales Trading (ST) Markets Training group, where a bout 100 interns were trained on basics, such as what is equity, what is a bond through how markets are supposed to behave to how financial derivatives fit into the bank. The second week, I took part in a more risk specific training to be prepared for my eight weeks at the desk. Before the training weeks were completed, students were formed into groups of four to prepare a case study to competitively pitch to senior management. After some valuable training I was excited to finally join my CRM team and to apply my skills learnt and advanced at SIPA. The team in CRM was relatively small on a global basis and therefore I had a chance to work closely with colleagues also based in London and Hong Kong. The eight weeks were packed and I had several deliverables on top of assisting with ad-hoc tasks. However, it was a super learning experience and with the great support of the team I was able to master my objectives successfully. My summer objectives were based around the main work the team does, such as internal ratings of countries and measuring the exposure risk the bank experienced. The summer program was well structured. Each intern had a junior and senior mentor, who assisted the intern throughout the summer. Throughout the program there were also different social and professional events. Social events consisted of visiting a New York Yankee game and having dinner at different places. The professional events included senior speaker series with management from the bank. These were all very interesting; however I would say the highlight was when Jamie Dimon spoke to us and shared his experiences in banking and at J.P. Morgan. My summer experience at the bank has been wonderful and it was great to meet so many professionals with whom I look forward to staying in touch and working together in the future. It may be the fall semester only; however the sooner you start looking for your dream internship, the higher the chances that you will be working there during the following summer. Good luck! by Andreas Maerki, MPA International Finance and Economic Policy Dec ‘14 What I did this summer COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog I spent my summer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. My professional and academic interests are on politics and development in Latin America, particularly on innovation in the public sector. My decision to spend my summer in Rio de Janeiro came as a mixture of academic and personal curiosity. On one side, I was familiar with some of the innovation efforts been carried out by the Secretary of Education of Rio and I was eager to learn more about their programs. On the other side, despite its political and economic importance for Latin America I knew very little about Brazil. Hence, the offer to intern at the Secretary of Education of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro came just in time and I was ready to depart to my destination. The Secretary of Education of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro (SME) is in charge of the municipal red of schools of Rio de Janeiro, that is, a total of 1.076 schools including kinder garden and elementary level, with 633.449 students enrolled and 42.536 teachers. The challenges of the public system are numerous and diverse, especially for the schools located in dangerous areas. In order to improve the quality of education in public schools and the quality of life of the communities where they are located, the current Secretary of Education, Claudia Costín, along with her team started to implement several very interesting initiatives. One of these initiatives, for which I had the opportunity to work, is Escolas do Amanhã, which was created for schools that were in favelas recently pacified. Given the weak presence of the government in these communities, the program changed the structure of these schools to include services that supported the community, like health and parenting services. Another unique program currently in place is called GENTE, which promotes a new concept of school that fully integrates the new educational technologies and places the student in the center of the learning process. The pilot school for the program is called Escola Municipal Andre Uraní and it is located in Rocinha, the biggest favela of Rio. I also had the opportunity of working with the team from GENTE, visit the pilot school and learn some of the philosophy behind their model. In the case of GENTE, all the students are given a laptop computer through which they do most of their learning. This is possible thanks to Educopédia, an online platform of digital classrooms where students learn the curriculum while teachers follow their progress and evaluation, also included in the platform. I spend a total of two months and a half in Rio de Janeiro. The internship was inspiring and very interesting, as it was the rest of experience in the country. The city is beyond beautiful, the culture is vibrant, the juices are natural and the beaches are amazing. I was lucky enough to be in Rio during the Confederation Coup, the visit of the Pope and the starting of the protests that are still taking place all over Brazil. It was a great summer indeed. Posted by Giuliana Irene Carducci Sanchez, 2-Year SIPA MPA, concentrating in EPD with specialization in Management