Name: Mai Anh Nguyen
Class Year: 2023
Major: Computer Science
Hometown: Quang Nam, Vietnam
Internship Organization: QuantaVerse LLC
Job Title: Data Science Intern
Location: Wayne, Pa. (remote from Boston, Mass.)
Award: Betsy Zubrow Cohen 1963 Presidential Innovation Fund
What’s happening at your internship?
I was working as a data science intern at QuantaVerse, a company that helps financial institutions manage financial crime risks more effectively and affordably using machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data analytics tools. My main tasks included conducting statistical analyses of the financial transactions and developing web APIs so another intern can access and use the client data and analyses to build a website dashboard. I was also working on creating API documentation that contained all information required to work with my APIs.
Why did you apply for this internship?
Since the real data was much more complex and messier than what I had learned at College, this internship was an invaluable opportunity for me to gain hands-on experience working with data. Besides, I applied for this internship because I would like to work with professionals in the field and see how organizations utilize data science for industry development. For instance, my company, QuantaVerse, applied data science to address problems of financial crime.
What has the experience of working remotely been like for you?
This was my first time working remotely, and it had both challenges and benefits. The lack of interactions with co-workers initially made me find socializing with my peers quite difficult, especially for an introvert like me. Also, since I was new to remote work, I was afraid of experiencing declines in communication and productivity. Therefore, I tried my best to utilize collaborative platforms such as Slack and Microsoft Teams to stay connected with my manager and other interns. I did not force myself to work continuously from 9 to 5. Instead, I scheduled my work around the hours I felt most productive, as long as my work was complete and led to strong outcomes. Personally, I did enjoy the flexibility of remote work, and I was glad that I could find strategies to improve my connection and performance.
Can you talk about the skills you are learning and why they are important to you?
I have been trying to develop my communication skills because effective communication is a straightforward process that allows me to express myself and improve both my personal and professional relationships. Moreover, every interaction can open a great opportunity, and good communication skills can allow me to understand information more quickly and accurately. I have been developing a habit of thinking before speaking. I also always reflected on my performance after every meeting or presentation to see what went well and what could be improved.
There is another skill that I got to learn during my internship: how to write clean code. Because I write code for other developers to understand, I must ensure that they can read, change my code, fix the bugs, and add new features. Therefore, I have been learning to write clean code and make the code run faster, so my current code is more readable, efficient, and reusable. I believe that if the code is easy to understand and easy to change, then it’s a good code.
Visit the Summer Internship Stories page to read more about student internship experiences.