Hi Blog Readers, I hope everyone’s had a great week! I want to dedicate this blog post to recapping my summer.
I spent my summer back home in Chicago, Illinois. I have spent a good chunk of my past two summers abroad in India—traveling in North India and doing an online Wellesley course in summer 2023 and interning in Mumbai through Wellesley’s Career Center during summer 2024. Thus, I was happy to have a full summer back home!
I interned at a consulting firm at their Chicago office from May to July. This was my first experience in consulting and finance, and I really enjoyed the work-life balance of corporate life!
I returned home to Chicago after finals here ended in mid-May. My company flew us out to Austin, Texas for a week-long orientation with the interns from all the nationwide offices. This was my first time in Texas, and it was so cool to meet all these other interns. In the Chicago office, I was also in a cohort of about thirty other interns, so it was nice to bond with them too.
The view from my hotel room in Austin 😍
I shadowed two teams and, through that, got to participate in two projects—one client project and one internal project. I learned immensely from the internship; I learned both technical skills in Excel, PowerPoint, and Python and leadership skills in how to improve my teamwork, adaptability, and communication. I am so grateful for the experience because it actually felt so different from Wellesley—it taught me how to grow and thrive in a brand new environment while still utilizing my teamwork and problem solving skills that I have honed here at Wellesley through my coursework and extracurriculars.
Near my internship office
Walking to grab lunch downtown
After my internship ended in mid-July, my parents and I went on a two-week vacation to the Bay Area in California! I was born and raised in the Bay Area and have not been there since 2022, so it was so fun to be back and see all my relatives. We enjoyed visiting our old haunts and going on a roadtrip to Eugene, Oregon.
My handprint outside my old elementary school!
Monterey Bay
At a winery in Napa Valley
Hiking to a waterfall in Oregon
After we got back home to Chicago, it was already almost August! I used my last month of summer to relax and hang out with my best friends from home. It was great to refuel before senior year. In mid-August, my parents and I drove up to Canada to see my cousins who live there. Then, we drove from Canada down to Boston with one of my cousins so she could help me move into Wellesley and tour the Boston-area colleges. It was so much fun to show my cousin and parents around campus.
I moved back to campus a week early for training for my job as an Academic Success Coach (ASC). During training, we discuss resources and methods for studying and time management and how to best communicate these with our students. We support first-years during orientation by doing Q&A sessions with international first-years, hosting help sessions for first-year course registration (which takes place the Friday morning of orientation), and presenting an “Academics 101” panel to first-years.
I hosted a help session for first-year course registration the night before and the morning of—there was definitely a lot of stress and nervous energy about whether they would get into the courses they wanted, but I think mostly everyone ended up satisfied!
And now, we’re in senior year fall! Thank you so much for reading this (lengthy) recap, and I will see you soon!