My First Internship
In my internship as a Data Analyst at Ericsson, my main responsibilities were to collect and analyze data and then use it to make predictive models that could be used to make decisions on the next steps of the project. I worked with a team of two other interns and we primarily worked on the ongoing project of updating the system of one of Ericsson's customers. I helped lead the creation of cost models and had the opportunity to present my findings to the regional head.
Having the opportunity to intern at Ericsson was a very valuable experience for me. Not only did it allow me to learn from some of the best minds in the world, but it also gave me the opportunity to experience what it is like working in the industry. Furthermore, I got to polish my technical abilities while also learning more about professional communication and ethics. Working with datasets that comprise of tens of thousands of rows and ensuring that only information that is necessary is being used to create the predictive models was not an easy job; however, with some guidance from my manager, I was able to create models that allowed us to make informed decisions which in turn helped reduce our costs by almost 65%. Similarly, analyzing the data that was coming from the customer also helped me find some inefficiencies within the current system that were being overlooked. Gaining all this work experience helped me understand the complex world that lies beyond my studies and provided me with a lot of motivation in pursuing my goal of becoming a data scientist. I believe that I had a positive impact in the workplace and I am confident that I can use what I learned to become a better professional and use my skills to bring upon positive changes to the world.
Working as an intern has helped me develop skills like :
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Collaboration and Appreciating Others Contributions - Each person in the team had his own job, and without one the others could not proceed with their work. Each of us was trying to do their best, get noticed by the higher-ups; however, we were a team and it was important for us to appreciate each other's work and assist each other when the time comes. In order for me to build my models, I needed the raw data to be filtered and cleaned before I could proceed, and it was important that I learn to trust my teammates and rely on them otherwise none of our work would be successful.
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Social Responsibility - The project that we were working on could affect hundreds of thousands of people. Hence, it was our priority to ensure that our work was being done properly and we were not leaving any stones unturned when it came to finding potential solutions that would help make the system upgrade go a lot smoother. Our work would help build the foundation upon which our communities will build, and understanding the importance of that and building towards it was something that I learned while working.
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Advocating a point of view - When working with data there are so many different ways to model it depending on your purpose. For me, it was important that I remain impartial when working with it and push for the most efficient and ethical model. However, my definition of efficiency was not the same as other people, and in order for people to understand my work and what it can provide I needed to know how to explain what I did and more importantly, why I did.
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Resiliency - Having little work experience before this internship, my work at the start was inefficient and full of holes. It would take me a lot longer to debug code or analyze data than what others would take and there was a lot of pressure on me to improve within a short period of time. It was during these stressful times that I had to keep going without losing track of the main goal. I had to spend extra time working on my part of the work, but I would not stop till it was perfect. Slowly but surely, my skills caught up and I became what they wanted me to be.