Within the Baruch College community, students’ career goals vary. Applying for an internship at JPMorgan Chase & Co. is a popular choice for students who major in computer information systems and have an interest in computer science.

Daniela Zbib is a junior at Baruch who majors in computer information studies through the data analytics track and minors in computer science.

Obtaining a software engineering internship at JPMorgan was “probably the best outcome that can happen in my career life, it was the best place to learn because I could apply all the skills I learned in my classes,” Zbib said.

Zbib interned with JPMorgan during the winter 2023 semester, which took place over three weeks. To obtain the internship, she applied through a program called “Break Through Tech.”

“Break Through Tech” targets female and nonbinary CUNY students in computer science and related disciplines. Within the program, companies have the choice of picking interns within the pool of applicants who are exclusively enrolled in CUNY schools. Students can rank companies based on their preferences, which opens a lot of opportunities.

Zbib strives to become a computer software engineer, so attaining high-profile opportunities at JPMorgan would make her resume look more impressive.

“It made me excited because the work I contributed to will be actually used and it makes me proud to talk about it on my resume knowing I made an impact on the company,” Zbib said.

During the internship, Zbib worked in a team of five students from the same program Leadership was an important skill needed to execute mandatory projects.. Maintaining a leadership role helped her practice being in control of projects and made her stand out to the supervising managers.

The three-week project was to build a system that broadcasts emails to clients in order to manage their bonds in a system that was reliant on written reports.

Interns participated in “coffee chats” and morning “stand ups” with upper management daily. Within these brief meetings, supervisors would go over possible ways to improve and answer questions that interns had.

Zbib said her work was primarily “hands on with tech,” and JPMorgan did not “sugarcoat” real world careers. JPMorgan’s “internship gives a reality check on what the job will be.”

She emphasized how important it was for the company to challenge the interns’ critical thinking skills and test their knowledge on coding programs such as Python and programming languages such as “NumPy,” “pandas” and “Structured Query Language.”

Overall, Zbib thought her experience was great.

“Working on a team with like-minded students from CUNY felt refreshing, brainstorming together and solving a problem on the same computer was my favorite experience there,” Zbib shared.

Zbib noted that she didn’t learn how to test data applications from her classes, but rather from the internship, as she was forced to teach herself this outside of the classroom.

“You get 10% of what you will be doing in school,” she said. “The rest you’ll learn in the real world.”

As a piece of advice,  Zbib accentuated the importance of pursuing projects on one’s own time.

The Baruch junior said to “work with the tech you want to work with.” She added that doing this allows one to stand out in the crowd of applicants and makes them more valuable towards the field of work they are interested in.

“Practice makes perfect,” she said, adding that one’s ability to maintain a consistent work ethic outside of school will determine how far they will go.

“Practice as much as you can by trying to solve a new problem every day, upscale yourself because it’s a fast-changing environment,” Zbib said. “Technology is always evolving and to make it in this field, you need to keep up with that evolution.”

Alongside practice, Zbib stressed that confidence is key when pursuing internships.

“The most important quality is confidence and the belief you are capable of doing what you want to do, and what pushes you farther is the ability to communicate and work with others,” Zbib said.

Zbib’s time with JPMorgan has allowed her to gain future opportunities. For the summer of 2023, she will be a technology analyst for Credit Suisse Group AG where she previously held a technology analyst intern role.