A total of 46 students of Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q) gained experience in the workplace through internships this summer and nine of them shared their experiences at the CMU-Q Internship Showcase recently. The forum was an opportunity for students, particularly freshmen and sophomores, to learn about the importance of internships in Carnegie Mellon education.
“CMU-Q prepares you really well for doing an internship, because you have all the basic knowledge. For example, CMU-Q taught me a lot about design thinking as a foundation for solving problems, and it turns out that McKinsey uses design thinking for their brainstorming solutions,” said Ibrahim Soltan, who interned at McKinsey and Company.
Several employers attended the event to provide their perspective.
Christoph Weber, managing director of HOCHTIEF ViCon Qatar, supervised Sabal Subedi’s internship and said: “One of the things that impressed me most with Sabal is that we could give him a task and he was able to work on it alone.
He came when he needed help, but you didn’t have to guide him every step of the way.”
The students emphasised the hands-on nature of their internships; several made significant contributions to the companies where they worked, developing business plans, rewriting code or conducting biological research.
Mounir Sheikh, who interned for a Google team tasked with business development in sub-Saharan Africa, said: “My experience at Google allowed me to affect the next billion people coming online, and studying at CMU-Q is also a reflection of how big my impact can be. No matter where I go, I know that I will make sure I am positively benefiting my community.”
Students also heard from three women in the Biological Sciences programme who spent the summer at Qatar Biomedical Research Institute.