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:

Jennifer Eickelberg
Internship with: Nabisco, Ecuador

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

Week 1 (Posted June 19, 2000)
I'm here in Quito and everything has gone very well so far. I have been at Nabisco Royal for one week, and have had many introductions into the different branches and SBUs that Nabisco has here. The management and everyone here have received me well, and are very flexible about projects that I will be working on. They want this to be a good experience for me, as well as beneficial for them.

Quito is located in a valley, so there are mountains all around the city. It's very beautiful, and I have a wonderful view from where I sit in the ninth floor office. My homestay is going very well too. I'm staying with two other twenty-somethings that always have something going on. I will keep busy, that's for sure.

Week 2 (Posted June 26, 2000)
I've finished my second week at Nabisco Royal in Quito, and it's going very well. Marketing in Ecuador is very advanced. I was surprised to see the extent of product testing and direct marketing they do here. Nabisco Royal has a beautiful customer service center, where they tape a television program and hold classes to teach people about Royal products. There is also a survey center that is equipped with individual testing areas, each with a computer, which they use to record responses for testing. And yes, I have been eating a lot of cookies!

Ecuador is presently recovering from an economic crisis. Last year the country experienced a 90% devaluation of their currency (the sucre) and is presently going through the process of dollarization. I've been trying to learn more about it, and I have found that the people are very hopeful that the dollarization will help the economy. It's incredibly interesting for me to be able to learn about this process first hand, and not only read about it in the newspaper!

Week 3(Posted July 3, 2000)
I must say that one of the highlights of my week was reading all of the students' experiences on this webpage. I guess we all feel a bit like fishes out of water.

Work is going well, and I have started a project to rejuvenate one of the products that suffered greatly in the economic crisis of 1999. I will be doing market research to determine how best to market the product. Along with the market research I will be doing research on the patterns of the economy and specific products since the crisis. I am really looking forward to getting involved in this project.

I have been experiencing some very typical Latin American things. This past week I went to the bullfights and to a soccer game; Ecuador vs. Peru. It was very exciting, and Ecuador won which made it even better. Yesterday I went to the Middle of the World, which is a monument near Quito that lies exactly on the Equator. It was beautiful, and there was great entertainment, including typical Indian dancing. They also have beautiful crafts here, most of which are hand made. I hope I have room in my suitcase to bring a touch of Ecuador home with me!

Week 4(Posted July 10, 2000)
I had a great week, but I missed home a little bit knowing that everyone was celebrating the Fourth of July. It was a busy week, as I continued to work on my project and helped with some sales presentations that are due.

Yesterday I went to Otavalo, which is a famous Indian market in Ecuador. They have beautiful things for sale, and I bought a ton! It was really fun, and I went with a woman from work who helped me with the bargaining. I spent about half of what I had budgeted, and I owe that to her. There's also a wonderful waterfall near Otavalo, so we went there too. The area is called Peguche, and we had a wonderful time there. Also this weekend I went on an informal city tour, that took me into the downtown area again. It's absolutely beautiful. There are many old churches, some which date back to the 1300s. I look forward to going again and spending some time. I was unable to enter the churches because I was there at night.

I will spend this week at work continuing my LifeSavers project, and working on other things here and there that the office needs help with. I am also scheduled for another city tour. I'll tell you all about it in my next entry.

Week 5 (Posted July 17, 2000)
My project to market imported products to Ecuador is proving to be a challenge, as they are very expensive and the country is still in an economic crisis. That is not to say that the project is not going well, but it is certainly something that I have not experienced before.

This week I went on a wonderful city tour. The tour went to the historic district, where I had been before but I could never tire of it. It's incredible. On Sunday afternoon I went to the area where La Virgen de Panecillo stands. It is a huge statue, and she is considered to be the protector of Quito. It is the highest point in the city, so I could look out over all sides and see the entire city. It was beautiful. I filled the time between work and sightseeing at some modern discos.

I can't believe I'm starting my sixth week of work. It has gone by very fast. I know that I'm going to wish I had more time down here. It really has been wonderful.

Week 6 (Posted July 24, 2000)
Everything is going great in Quito! The project at work is coming along, and I keep learning more and more, especially when I go out into the market with salespeople. The office has also been busy with certain presentations that deal with the purchase of Nabisco by Philip Morris. It's an interesting time to be here.

As for after work activities, I have to admit that I'm really enjoying having my evenings and weekends mostly free. There are lots of great bars and restaurants here in Quito. And there are plenty of other great things to see too. I went to Calderon today, which is another city near Quito. In Calderon they make figurines and decorations out of bread dough called mazapan. I bought a lot of little ornaments.

I'm trying to catch soccer fever, and it's not hard to catch here. Last week Ecuador played Argentina, and the streets were empty. The game was in Buenos Aires, but everyone was watching the game either at their homes or a bar. Today I went to the stadium to fight the crowds and buy tickets for the Ecuador vs. Colombia game this week. I'll tell you about it in my next entry!

Week 7(Posted August 1, 2000)
Heading into my eighth week! I can't believe it. The summer is coming to a close here, and the other interns have either left or are leaving this week. So for the next couple of weeks I'll be the only student here at Nabisco. I'm learning a lot, and will probably have to prepare a presentation before I leave, so I'll be working hard these last couple of weeks. I've also been keeping quite busy outside of work.

I'm continuing with dance classes, and I actually start the next level this week. In this level we will be continuing with the same dances but learning in pairs. It should be fun. I really enjoy those classes; it's a great way to relax after work. I know my last diary left everyone hanging about the soccer game. I went on Tuesday, and unfortunately it was quite uneventful. Neither team scored any points. But I did learn some interesting words after the game when the Colombian fans and Ecuadorian fans were crossing paths. I've been having some interesting culinary exploits as well. I went to a really nice steak house for dinner with some people from work, and found out that a "grill" comes with all parts of the animal, so I tried to politely look away from the blood sausage and kidneys. Later in the week a woman from work took me to her house and showed me how to make some of the typical foods of Ecuador. That was very nice, and I knew there was nothing questionable in what I was eating.

This past weekend I went to a little tourist town called Baños. There are thermal baths there that are heated by the nearby volcano. It was a nice getaway, and I got to see a tourist part of Ecuador. In Quito the tourists are usually just passing through. Ecuador has a lot to offer for tourism, and there are campaigns in action to further develop the tourism in the country. There I purchased some other interesting local specialties, like some kind of berry syrup and a nut flavored taffy that they make in the streets (that's right, nut-flavored, it's not really nut…). So I'm looking forward to another interesting week, full of work and fun experiences. Until next week!

Week 8(Posted August 7, 2000)
Thing are wonderful here in Quito. I can't believe I only have a couple of weeks left. I'll be working for two more weeks, and after that I'll have two weeks to travel. So not only will I be finishing up things here in the office the next couple of weeks, I'll be planning my trips as well. And of course I'm counting the days until I'm back in classes!

Since last Friday was a national holiday here, I took a long weekend and went to the coast. I went with a couple of friends, and we had a wonderful time. We left on a bus at 11:00pm on Thursday night, and arrived at the beach on Friday morning. We spent Friday morning trying to find a hotel, since there was a problem with our reservation and the hotel we had booked couldn't take us until Saturday. But I figured, no problem, we're at the beach. We only need the hotel for sleeping. So we had a great day, had some wonderful fish for dinner and went back to the hotel to play some cards. The hotel room was fine at that time, but when I woke up on Saturday morning and looked in the mirror I couldn't believe my eyes! I had been attacked by some kind of bug, and my body was covered in red dots. And how they itched! Every time I looked in the mirror I was more amazed. I started counting how many bites I had, but I got tired of that when I reached 50 on one arm alone. My travel companions were very reassuring (they escaped the wrath of sancudos somehow) and convinced me that I wasn't terrible to look at, although they appreciated that I wore a long sleeve shirt at meals. We got back to Quito on Sunday night, and my host family took one look at me and said, "Oh no, we should have told you to sleep with bug repellant". Well, thanks for the thought anyway.

It's Monday, and I feel a bit better now. The only lasting effect is that I keep itching and my feet are swollen from the bites on the bottom of them. This week I plan to go to the cookie plant, which is about one and a half hours away from Quito by car. I will spend the rest of the week working, and attending dance classes in the evenings. Can't forget that! Thank goodness there aren't sancudos in Quito.

Week 9(Posted August 11, 2000)
I'm sending my diary a little early this week, because my schedule will be a little different. Tomorrow I will be going to Nabisco Royal's company picnic, which is an all day outing at a park outside of the city. Everyone is looking forward to it. They say it's always a great time.

I got to go to the cookie factory this week. It's about an hour and a half outside of Quito. I had a nice tour, and ate some fresh Choco Chips (what we know as Chips Ahoy!). What fascinated me the most was the speed of production. It's a small plant, and it produces cookies for the whole country. It is very efficient. Once they put the dough in the machine at the beginning of the line, it's only about 20 minutes until the cookies are packed for shipment.

This weekend I'm going to Guayaquil. That is the largest city in the country, and the commercial center. It's on the coast, so it's a port city. Everyone talks about how different it is from Quito, so I can't wait to see for myself!

Today I experienced what must be one of the worst disappointments for a marketing professional. I did a taste test for the product I'm researching in Nabisco's Consumer Service Center. I had bet on the fact that one of the products would fare better in the taste test, and I was absolutely wrong. The results were exactly the opposite of what I expected. So the proposal I had planned to make is completely invalid. It's week 9 and I'm back to square one!

Week 10(Posted August 22, 2000)
Tomorrow is my last day at work. I can't believe it! It's gone by way too fast. But I learned a lot about marketing and about the Ecuadorian culture so I consider my internship to be a complete success. It turns out that the results of my taste test weren't as contradictory as I thought they would be, so my project is continuing as before. These last couple of days I've been spending putting my project in order so that the next intern can pick up where I will have to leave off.

On Saturday I'm leaving for my vacations. For the first week I'll be in Peru. I'll spend a couple of days in Lima, a couple in Cuzco, and my ultimate destination is Machu Pichu. I've seen some absolutely incredible photos - I can't wait to see it in person. When I come back to Quito I'll be here for just a few hours and then I'm off to the Galapagos Islands. I will be taking a cruise to some of the islands, which they say is the best way to visit the islands if you have a time constraint because you travel during the night and arrive to a new island in the morning. I'll come back from that trip and have a day in Quito to do last minute shopping and packing. Then its back to classes. I wish I could stay here a little longer, but I can't wait to see my classmates and hear about their experiences!