Meet Emmanuel Wu’19 Market Analysis Intern at Northern Light, LLC
Tell us about where you are interning and the kind of work you are doing.
I interned at Northern Light, LLC in Boston, MA. As a market analysis intern, I analyzed markets within certain industries and presented my analyses through PowerPoint slides. My PowerPoint slides will eventually be displayed on Northern Light’s online market research dashboard. My industry focus has been IT. The markets in IT include cloud computing, artificial intelligence, telecom, big data, etc. Conducting market analysis involves gathering market data and news reports, examining market information, discussing market information with colleagues, and extracting key arguments from news reports. As for presenting analyses through Powerpoint slides, it includes searching and posting relevant graphs and diagrams, writing brief paragraphs that sum up certain market topics, and simplifying information for easy visualization.
Give us an example of how you have applied your academic learnings to your internship?
Since I am an economics major, most of the knowledge I learned from Principles Of Macroeconomics (ECON 111) have been used to the fullest during my internship. The terminologies I learned from the course have allowed me to easily understand the lingoes in news reports and market data. In addition, the knowledge I acquired from Financial Accounting (ACCT 181) has helped me to interpret the numerical meanings in market data and financial statements.
What has surprised you about being an intern?
Before I entered my internship, I underestimated the level of difficulty to present market analyses through PowerPoint slides. During the first three weeks, I struggled to complete several workloads on time, since I was not used to transform market information into graphs and brief synopses. Additionally, I was not very familiar with the IT industry, which usually slowed down my pace in gathering the correct market information. In order to comprehend IT news and its market information, I had to spend extra time self-studying IT terms and ask my supervisor a lot of questions regarding technology businesses. Despite several challenging experiences, I was surprised how approachable my supervisor was whenever I asked him questions. Interestingly, consulting with my supervisor was very similar to discussing my papers with my professors at Holy Cross.
How did this experience influence or connect to your future career plans / goals?
My experience at Northern Light has led me to thoroughly learn about the IT industry, sharpen my analytical skills, and develop the habit to read the news on a daily basis. I realized that my internship is well connected to finance, which is the field that I aspire to enter in the future. My understanding of the IT markets and familiarity with the methods to conduct market analysis would benefit me in creating projects and doing research in the financial industry. Furthermore, I would be able to explain my reasoning to people that are interested in or uncertain with the fluctuations in the technology markets. While part of my job is to read through news reports, I have been forced to read multiple news articles on a daily basis. This part of the job has in fact developed my habit to follow closely with political and financial news. I believe that this habit is mandatory for anyone that works in finance.
Any internship advice to pass on to other Holy Cross students?
I would highly encourage interns to ask many questions and demonstrate a “can do” attitude during challenging times. As I have mentioned above, asking my supervisor questions was very similar to going to my professors’ office hours. Although there will be challenging times during the internship, I would suggest to remain patient and persevere during the process. My experience has taught me that demonstrating a “can do” attitude is the key to successfully persevere during hardship.
