Reflecting On Eagle's 2018 Summer Internship Program

While the momentum of many companies might slow down during the summer months, this couldn’t be further from the truth at Eagle. In the past year, we launched our digital-platform strategy and announced a collaboration with Microsoft Azure to deliver data management solutions in a hybrid cloud model. And this summer, the energy remains high as we await completion of our redesigned Wellesley headquarters, which will foster an open, collaborative environment for us to welcome our clients from around the globe. As I have an opportunity to take a short pause and reflect on some of the highlights of the year to date, I’d be remiss if I did not recognize our summer internship program. This year we welcomed sixteen talented and enthusiastic young individuals who each brought innovative ideas and fresh perspectives to the organization. I hope that while working alongside us, we in turn provided a vision of what joining a vibrant technology company like Eagle can offer.

As a wrap up to the intern program, the group prepared a final presentation about their time at Eagle to share with the entire company. Their feedback was gratifying as they described experiences far from the stereotypical internship programs with largely administrative tasks in stiff, corporate environments. They shared that they found the projects they were involved in to be interesting and impactful, that their co-workers were receptive and willing to guide them, and that they experienced benefits beyond professional development—like forging friendships in a diverse environment. One intern even mentioned that her experience led her to reconsider her major, and several others offered that they would be looking to augment their course work with subjects they hadn’t considered before.

Across Eagle, these young individuals worked in many different roles, taking on projects that will remain relevant long after they’ve returned to their studies. In Marketing, they elevated our digital strategy, leveraging marketing automation to improve lead scoring and analytics while augmenting Eagle’s social media presence through the creation of an Instagram account (@eagleinvsys). In Corporate Communications, they worked with teams across the organization to promote agile adoption and share our successes through a blog series. Others worked directly with Eagle clients as part of the Relationship Management team. And they contributed operationally by developing a training program for knowledge management and by implementing new protocols for employee onboarding.

This year, we introduced a mentoring component to the program, pairing each intern with an early career Eagle employee. Through these mentorships, interns were able to connect with younger employees who may have shared similar experiences at the start of their careers. Our interns told us that relationships with employees closer in age fostered a safe space to ask questions and led to deeper friendships and networks.

At Eagle we know that devoting time and resources to an immersive internship program is not only an investment in the future careers of these students, but that it can also have a lasting, transformative impact on the organization itself. Our interns, with their myriad of contributions, have brought measurable value to us at a key point in Eagle’s positioning for the future.

As our interns prepare to depart, I want to thank each one of them for their hard work and contributions and wish them the best in their future endeavors. I also want to thank everyone at Eagle who welcomed them, answered their questions, and demonstrated that collaboration is at the heart of everything we do at Eagle.