The Best Summer Ever

As a college Freshman, I had a couple of options for the summer of 2019: I could go home to my parents and intern locally, I could stay at school and do some research, I could even take the summer off of work… or I could fly halfway across the world and work for one of the best information technology companies globally. Working for Infosys had many advantages, but one of the best was breadth of things they do. The InStep program had projects for any interest, from quantitative research to legal work to management and consulting.

As a data science major with an interest in machine learning, I was able to find a project building ML models to predict pricing data for a client. I worked with around ten local employees with one supervising manager, and I immediately found my place in the team. Everybody was cognizant of my interests and abilities, so I was able to work on things that interested me and were tailored to my capabilities. In the end, we were able to deliver successful models to the client, and the algorithms that I worked on reduced the error in these models by up to 15%.

Going to India was a bit scary at first, but the InStep team did everything possible to make this transition as easy and comfortable as possible. I stayed in a hotel with around 150 of the other interns, mostly from Europe and the United States, who were all incredibly friendly and sociable. We went on several fun weekend trips throughout India and explored Bangalore during the week. While intimidating at first, the decision to work for Infosys last summer was the best of my life. I worked on projects that I loved and met people and had experiences that I will never forget.