{"id":163733,"date":"2020-08-27T07:15:57","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T11:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=163733"},"modified":"2020-08-25T15:37:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T19:37:00","slug":"interning-pandemic-one-uconn-students-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2020\/08\/interning-pandemic-one-uconn-students-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Interning in a Pandemic: One UConn Student’s Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although it’s disrupted just about every aspect of life in the U.S., UConn student Madisyn MacDonald ’22 (CLAS) is not letting the pandemic slow her pursuit of a career. MacDonald is currently participating in a remote internship with Farmington-based company Otis Elevator<\/a>, where she is learning about the business world while working through the upheaval caused by COVID-19.<\/p>\n

As a mathematics and sociology double-major, MacDonald got a jump start in setting herself apart from her peers by seeking an internship early in her time at UConn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was looking for work as a freshman, and I wanted to get ahead so I started looking at different companies that were hiring interns,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

By utilizing resources available at UConn, namely The Center for Career Development<\/a><\/u>, MacDonald says she was taught important skills \u2013 such as effective resume-writing and interview preparation \u2013 that were needed to help get her foot in the door. Once she applied to Otis, she was happy to have even made it to the interview stage, and ended up landing the internship,\u00a0 something she is proud to have achieved so early in her university experience. Otis bills itself as the world’s leading company for elevator and escalator manufacturing, installation, and service. The company maintains more than 2 million customer units worldwide, and in normal times its products move 2 billion people a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have worked with Otis since September of 2019 as a member in a co-op, as of now I will be staying with Otis until I graduate, and possibly even after I graduate, too,\u201d MacDonald says.<\/p>\n

In her time at Otis working as a member of the company\u2019s tax team, MacDonald has learned a multitude of skills touching on a wide range of subjects, from international taxes, to transfer pricing, to credit analysis. \u201cI never expected to be a part of a co-op, but I am so grateful for it because I have learned much more than I would have in a 10-week summer intern program,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the widespread restrictions that followed the initial surge of cases in the spring did not mean an end to the experience; instead, it has evolved into a remote internship full of new and unexpected learning opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe transition was difficult at first. In the office I had the chance to attend in-person meetings and I could walk over to talk to my boss at any time to ask a question,\u201d says MacDonald. \u201cIn working remotely I have definitely had to learn about communication and time management. At home there are more distractions so you have to make sure you are in a work-friendly environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides building communication and time-management skills while working remotely, MacDonald has been managing all of her department\u2019s work orders and purchase orders to help out with the high work load in the busy transition to working remotely.<\/p>\n

In addition to the disruption caused by the pandemic, in April Otis<\/a> separated from United Technologies<\/a><\/u>, another transition that provided valuable insight into the business world for MacDonald.<\/p>\n

\u201cOtis is a huge company, the spin-off was a huge transition, and especially as someone who has no experience in the business world, it was definitely a lot to take in,” she says. “Otis\u2019s executive team had a lot of ‘what-if’ scenarios to be prepared for the spin, but becoming a standalone company in the middle of a global pandemic was not one of those. I was thrown into the mix right before the spin and the pandemic, so I had to adapt quickly. I have learned a lot about how a business operates in such trying times and about myself in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though it felt like a whirlwind at times, MacDonald stepped up to new responsibilities in response to the pandemic and learned important skills for the workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no experience going into this, but UConn prepared me in so many ways. I am so grateful to have mentors at both UConn and Otis who have taught me so much and have guided me through my journey as a college student,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Going forward, MacDonald is excited about the future, no matter what it holds.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be quite honest, I have no idea what I want to do. Right now, I\u2019m in a process of elimination. My boss has been helpful. He is setting up meetings with different departments within the area of finance to see what I like the best to pursue in the future,\u201d says MacDonald. \u201cOtis is also introducing its very own Rising Leaders Program where you participate in three, eight-month rotations, each in a different concentration within your field. All of the opportunities are what has attracted me to this company.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacDonald\u2019s advice to others seeking internships at this difficult time is to not give up. She says at a time when a lot of companies are canceling internship programs, it is important to be persistent: \u201cKeep looking and apply for everything you can, you never know what you have a chance for. Working remotely is definitely challenging, but it is not impossible. Who knows how long this will go on for, so we may have to get used to it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The COVID-19 pandemic might have complicated one UConn student’s dream internship, but it didn’t derail it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":163742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,2213,1862,2225,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2093],"class_list":["post-163733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-coronavirus","category-busn","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 19:23:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163733"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163757,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163733\/revisions\/163757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/163742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163733"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=163733"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=163733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}