Center for Career & Professional Development
Southwestern Student Spends Second Summer Interning at the Dallas Fed
Economics major and data science minor Alex Joseph ’20 recounts his high-impact learning experience.
October 21, 2019
October 21, 2019
Open gallery
This was my second summer working at the Federal Reserve Bank (the Fed) in Dallas as an information technology (IT) technical intern. My first summer involved data analysis and metric creation, and I spent a lot of time working in Excel. This summer, I worked in the same department providing service data for audit and compliance purposes.
After my first summer at the Fed, I changed my major to economics with a minor in data science, so already my time there has significantly altered my career path. My time at the Fed has taught me a lot about what I’m looking for and what I’m not in a potential job. I’ve applied and already interviewed for a few internal jobs, but I’m definitely going to take my job search outside the Bank before I make any final decisions. Nonetheless, the Dallas Fed internship program provided lots of internal and external networking opportunities around Dallas as well as other career-building and training programs to prepare me as I move into my senior year and, eventually, postgraduate life.
Probably the biggest takeaway from my time at the Fed was just getting my first real taste of the business world. The standing of the Fed alone provides a lot of great opportunities, and because of that, I’ve had the chance to work with a lot of amazing people. Being there for two summers now, I’ve had the chance to grow some amazing relationships, and I’ve finally started to see the importance of building strong and lasting personal connections.
