DePaul MBA/IMF Program

Review these "Day in the Life of...," then take a look at

The Curriculum, or
What a Typical Week of classes and lectures might be.

What kind of experiences you might have on the internship, with diaries from the following students:

Ece Bennett(ABN AMRO, United States)
Amy Christopher(UNCTAD, Switzerland)
Stacy Deming (Affinity Logic, South Africa)
Jennifer Eickelberg(Nabisco, Ecuador)
Andrew May(Citibank, United Kingdom)
Rebecca Nakamura(SI Associates, Singapore)
Lana Natalchenko(BANKONE, United States)
Amy Shang(Mercedes Benz, United States)

A Week in the Life of an MBA student on an internship:

Ece Bennett
Internship with: ABN AMRO, Chicago, Illinois

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10

Week 1 (Posted on June 19, 2000)
I can't believe that my first week at ABN Amro Power and Infrastructure Group is already over. The people at the bank are very nice and friendly and I feel like I am part of the group. Also, it feels nice to be back in an office environment after being a student for almost a year. My first days were busy with reading a lot of material about the group and the power and infrastructure industry and their clients. I have also worked on a presentation to be used for internal marketing purposes, I will be finalizing the presentation in the next three weeks. It is very helpful for me to learn more about the group's strategies, performance, and targets for the new millennium. I am also assigned to a project to finance three power plants in Turkey. I will be able to use my Turkish and local expertise. It seems like I will have a busy and productive summer.

Week 2 (Posted on June 27, 2000)
Days have started to go faster, which is a good sign. That means I am getting used to my new environment. I am still working on the presentation and I plan to finish it next week. The presentation is for internal marketing purposes and will be presented at the bank's headquarters in Amsterdam. ABN AMRO was originally founded as a Dutch bank but now has operations all over the world. It is currently the sixth largest bank in the world and the third largest in Europe. It's North American headquarters are located in Chicago and they own LaSalle bank, which is one of the largest banks in the U.S. Everyday I am learning something new at work and my responsibilities are increasing.

Apart from work I am enjoying my first summer in Chicago. The city is very pretty with the lake, parks, flowers and street festivals. There is almost something new to do everyday. Also, the international students who do their internships in the U.S. met for lunch this week and exchanged our work experiences. It was short but sweet, and we decided to do it more often.

Week 3 (Posted on July 5, 2000)
I finished the presentation this week and my boss liked it very much. I have been assigned to a new project to determine how much exposure the Power & Infrastructure Group has with its clients. We celebrated the birthday of a member of the group. It was nice to socialize with my colleagues and also to have a little fun. This coming Tuesday is the 4th of July which is a national holiday. I took Monday off to have a four day long holiday and to enjoy the summer more. I am looking forward to that!

Week 4 (Posted on July 13, 2000)
This week passed quickly as I only worked from Wednesday to Friday. The short workweek was due to the Fourth of July holiday, celebrated on Tuesday (I also took Monday off). I mainly worked on my new project for these three days. It was nice to have a little break. I was able to take a short trip outside of Chicago for the weekend to visit a small lake in Wisconsin. On Monday, I had friends from Istanbul stay overnight on their way to visit Orlando, Florida. Even though it was a short visit we were able to get in a lot of sightseeing, including a boat tour of the Chicago River and a quick stop at the "Taste of Chicago" festival. They loved Chicago! The fireworks on Tuesday evening were also spectacular. Even though fireworks are illegal to possess in Illinois, many Chicagoans celebrated the 4th of July with fireworks late into the evening and early morning. I am looking forward to a full week of work and I expect to be very busy with new projects.

Week 5 (Posted on July 17, 2000)
This week I worked very hard on my new project and finished my part. Now I need to go over the numbers with all the relationship managers to double-check the figures. My plan is to finalize my report by the end of next week. Also, I helped update valuations for a project. The first half of my internship has finished. The days go so fast!

I attended a seminar on B2B E-Commerce as part of the "Summer Intern Program." The goal of this program is to expose interns to the bank as much as possible. In this respect, the Human Resources Department wants interns to gain exposure in several areas of ABN Amro and LaSalle Bank in addition to working in individual departments. Executives from throughout the bank give presentations to share their perspectives with the interns every Wednesday. The presentations originally started on June 14, but I could not attend the first four sessions due to my workload. The B2B E-Commerce presentation was very interesting, pointing out the potential of the B2B side of e-commerce as well as emphasizing the opportunities for banks in this area. ABN Amro is very committed to e-commerce and has allocated around $1.6 billion to develop and improve its e-commerce activities. These seminars are also nice as they allow me to meet and socialize with the other interns on a weekly basis. I will try to attend the coming presentations during the remainder of my internship.

The weather was very nice over the weekend. We made a visit to my in-laws who have a house on a small lake in Wisconsin. It was so much fun to be on the lake and enjoy the weather. Swimming in fresh water is very difficult compared to swimming in salt water. You really need to try hard to stay afloat. I was spoiled swimming in the salty Mediterranean Sea in Turkey.

Week 6 (Posted on August 1, 2000)
This week went by very fast. I started a new project that involves the income generated by the Power and Infrastructure Group's client base. My job is to make sure all the income is accounted for since the Group offers a wide variety of products through ABN AMRO's network. I also attended the weekly seminar for interns on Wednesday, which was about the Finance Group of the bank.

The speaker was a former Andersen Consulting employee who is now helping to improve the efficiency of the bank. This Thursday I went to the Shedd Aquarium for a jazz concert. It was so nice to be amongst exotic fish of all different species and to enjoy the wonderful view at the bar where live music was playing. It reminded me of one of the popular bars along the Bosphorus with its breathtaking view. We used to go there after work with friends and enjoy the view with the rhythms of the popular songs of the summer. Prior to the concert we visited the exhibitions which were all very interesting. Among them, the sea horse section was unbelievable, so many weird looking sea horses that look like they just jumped out from a science fiction movie. I definitely recommend seeing it.

The main attraction of the weekend was the Sheffield Garden Walk. It is a street festival where residents of the neighborhood open their gardens for visitors. There were many creative gardens built into very little spaces. There was also food, drinks and live music. What else do you need on a nice summer day!

Week 7 (Posted on August 1, 2000)
This week I attended the last of the weekly intern seminars, which was about sales and trading. The speaker was a recent graduate who loves what she is doing in her current position. She drew an interesting picture of the trading floor and the traders, pointing out the constant yelling and chaos. Definitely not the job for me! I finished the project assigned to me last week. My speed at Excel pays off. I will present the results during our departmental meeting next Monday. Every Monday we have department meetings where everyone talks about the projects they work on. These meetings are very helpful for me to understand what is going on in the department.

This Saturday I went to a Chicago Cubs baseball game. The Cubs are one of the two baseball teams in Chicago but they are certainly the most popular team. Even though they lose most of the time, Wrigley Field is always full. It is not only a sporting event but a social one. You can go there, drink, eat and chat with your friends and not even know the score. It works perfect for me since I don't know any of the rules except that you need to hit the ball. Apart from the Cubs game my weekend was very productive with shopping and cleaning and also with lots of fun.

Week 8 (Posted on August 14, 2000)
I presented the results of my report this Monday during the regular weekly meeting. Everybody said that I did a great job! This week I updated the "pitchbook" the group uses to bid for deals. The pitchbook is a marketing presentation that highlights the strengths and the experience of the members of the group. I was happy to use my marketing skills.

The weekend was a blast. We spent time with our two nephews and niece. It is amazing how mature the kids are these days, but still they love playing games. We paid the price of keeping up with them, as we were sore for the next couple of days!

Week 9 (Posted on August 14, 2000)
This week I was assigned to a project to make a risk analysis of the largest utility company in the world. The company expands rapidly and has more than 100 projects all around the world. My task is to explain each of these projects and to project their cash flows to the parent company.

This weekend we had friends over for dinner. I presented my cooking skills with a couple of traditional Turkish dishes. I definitely passed the test but I cooked a little bit too much so it looks like we know what we will be having this week for dinner!

Week 10 (Posted on September 5, 2000)
I can't believe that my internship is finished. My last week was very busy since I tried to tie up all the loose ends. I was able to finish the risk analysis report and made the final changes to the other projects I had worked on during my internship. My colleagues took me to lunch on both Thursday and Friday and we went out to happy hour after work on Thursday. We were joking that every week should have been my last so that we could have all these farewell celebrations each week!

We went to a Duran Duran concert on Friday night. Duran Duran was very popular during the 80s when I was a teenager. The concert was too much fun and it brought back many old memories. I don't need to mention that the average age at the concert was 30!

All in all my summer has been very productive and full of fun. I met a lot of nice people at ABN AMRO, experienced the competitive banking environment, and learned different ways of doing business in the banking sector.