Internship Journey
Q: Where did you intern and what motivated you to apply?
A: I wanted to translate classroom concepts into real-world solutions and see first-hand how data governance and analytics support a global firm’s operations. I interned at KPMG’s Data Office (IT Services) for five months as part of my degree.
Q: What was your role like during your internship?
A: I was part of a team that focused on improving enterprise data accessibility and analytics efficiency. I was part of the Enterprise Data Catalog Project, where I helped design and build ETL pipelines to collect, clean, and integrate data from multiple business units.
I also collaborated with stakeholders to translate business needs into technical specifications and developed Power BI dashboards that enabled senior leadership to access real-time insights.
Q: What was the most memorable moment for you?
A: Delivering my first end-to-end dashboard to senior leadership and seeing them interact with live data was a powerful reminder that well-designed analytics can spark real business change.
Learning and Growth on the Job
Q: What challenges did you face during your internship and how did your SIM coursework help you prepare for this experience?
A: My biggest challenge was learning production-grade ETL in a completely new cloud environment. My supervisors came from different technical backgrounds, so I had to take the initiative to fill in knowledge gaps and figure things out on my own.
At first, it was intimidating. But I broke tasks down into smaller goals and sought feedback regularly. I structured my weeks with strict time blocks: mornings for training, afternoons for coding sprints, evenings for assignments.
Breaking pipelines into small, testable steps and pairing with a mentor for code reviews helped me iterate quickly, stay on track, and maintain both athletic performance and project momentum. The technical projects that I completed as part of my SIM coursework honed my coding skills and trained me to think through messy, real-world scenarios.
Q: How did your internship help you grow in the areas of Head, Heart, and Hands?
A: Head (knowledge and thinking skills): I improved my ability to decompose complex data problems into logical steps and learned to translate technical jargon into business-friendly language.
Heart (values, attitudes, and self-awareness): Juggling double-day runs, intense project deadlines, and coursework reinforced perseverance, accountability, and a growth mindset. It showed me that consistent effort, whether in training or in code reviews, yields stronger results over time.
Hands (practical, applied skills): I gained first-hand experience building robust ETL pipelines, writing clear technical documentation, and creating interactive dashboards that drive insights.
Q: Looking back, what are you most proud of?
A: I’m proud that I managed to deliver a working data pipeline and dashboard on time, even on days when training and coursework got intense. It wasn’t perfect, but it proved I could stick with a challenge and figure things out as I went.
Recognition and Advice
Q: What does receiving the SIM WILL Award mean to you personally and how has this experience shaped your career aspirations?
A: It is a nice reminder that showing up even on tough days doesn’t go unnoticed. I am grateful to SIM for the recognition, which motivates me to continue learning and helping others whenever I can.
Q: What advice would you give to students who are unsure about taking up an internship?
A: Give it a shot, even if it feels out of your comfort zone. You will pick up skills you cannot learn in class and meet people who will look out for you. If it is not a perfect fit, that is okay — you will still remember what you do and do not enjoy.
About the SIM Work-Integrated Learning for Life (WILL) Award
The SIM Work-Integrated Learning for Life Award aims to provide real-world learning experiences where SIM students can develop holistically, and deepen their cognitive (Head), affective (Heart), and psychomotor (Hands) capacities for good work. It does this through offering a variety of high-quality opportunities for work-integrated learning.