Section 1.0 – Getting the Job

Section 1.1 – Advertising Your Availability

I had an existing resume from the summer after my sophomore year, but it was outdated. I used an example from my spring semester TSC 210 class to revise and updated my resume.  The text we used for the course was, Technical Communications: A Reader-Centered Approach by Paul V. Anderson.  I had other students as well as my instructor view the resume.  Also, I had my father and my neighbor review my resume.  I submitted my resume to First USA through my father who worked there and to JPMorganChase through a neighbor who works there.

Section 1.2 – Find Out About Job Openings

I asked relatives, neighbors, and family friends about openings they may have known about.  My father worked at First USA and submitted my resume to the internship program there.  However, First USA canceled their summer internship for this summer.  One of my neighbors works at JPMorganChase and submitted my resume to their ICS summer internship program.  The only job I interviewed for was the one I found out about it through my neighbor.

Section 1.3 – Landing Your Internship

I submitted my resume to JPMorganChase through my neighbor; they emailed me back saying the wanted to setup a phone interview.  Then, I called them to setup the phone interview and had a 30-minute phone interview with someone from HR.  Next, I got a call back for an in-person interview that I setup for when I was going to be in town the Friday of spring break. I had two interviews with CS/IT related employees, I thought I did well and that was confirmed when they called back the next week and offered me the job.  Afterwards I asked my neighbor if she could find out anything I could have done better in the interview and she said I could have know more about the company.  So looking back I could have prepared more for the interview and researched more, but I had just come back from spring break so it was too be expected.  Also, I would have liked to have written down stories and examples of leadership in advance so I could have talked about during the interview instead of coming up with them on the fly.

Section 2.0 – About the Job

Section 2.1 – Employer

            My employer is JPMorganChase at the Christiana Campus where the address is 500 Christiana Stanton Road, Newark DE 19713.  I work 8 hours a day, Monday through Friday.  I work for the PBIS AD group within the Private Banking Business.  The Application Development group within the Private Banking and Investment Management Division of JP Morgan Chase & Company is responsible for the support of several legacy applications that are utilized to support both deposit and security account products.  With the recent merger of JP Morgan and Chase, there is a need to consolidate applications to better service both the internal and external clients, while recognizing savings to the new combined organization.  The Legacy system PBIS runs on an IBM mainframe and was written in COBOL and uses DB2 tables.  The PBIS system has a text-based interface and here is a screen capture of the login screen (Figure 1).

Figure 1: PBIS Login Screen

 I work with eight other employees and no other interns.  We have two project managers, a team leader, five developers, and me.  The project mangers and team leader have a business and technical background to liaison between the users and the developers.  The developers are contractors who specialize in COBOL, DB2, and mainframe programming. The immediate ‘customers’ for my section are the users of the application we support.  Often times we had some problems understanding what the users wanted, but for the most part they were good to work with.  The immediate ‘suppliers’ would be the companies who supply vendor applications.  From my experience working on the project we have had numerous problems with vendor applications not meeting our requirements.  Also, it has been difficult to resolve the issues with the companies who support these applications in a timely fashion.  My immediate supervisor is the team leader.  The work pace is that of project work.  You pretty much set your own pace and mange your own time to insure your deliverables are completed on time.

Section 2.2 – Your Job

I was hired as a software tester and to work with the developers and the users to resolve issues found during testing.  Employer expected I would be familiar with the software life cycle and Microsoft Office.  Also, basic knowledge of databases and SQL was expected, but not required.  They also expected I should have good communication, time management and leadership skills.  Although the applications I would be working with were written in COBOL I was not expected to know the language.

My primary responsibilities included testing PBIS functionality for the Global Plus Straight Through Processing project.  This included entering transactions into PBIS and verifying that the transaction posted and read correctly in the Global Plus system.  I was also responsible for tracking and reporting all issues, worked with all required parties (TECS/On Line Banking/PBIS/Global Plus) to resolve.  I was also responsible for re-testing issues to insure the items had been corrected, prior to handing them over to the users for UAT.  I also worked with the project lead in follow-up items surrounding the overall project.  In addition to the Global Plus project, I compiled documentation for PBIS and creating a manual that will be utilized for new developers joining the group going forward.  Also, I reconciled back-up tapes of data from the cash vendor Fiserv.  Finally, PBIS administered an extensive COBOL source code clean up in the source control system Endevor.  I reviewed all obsolete program names to insure they have been properly deleted.

Beyond the job training: Excel, DMAIIC (6 Sigma), resume and interview skills, Novell web courses, networking lab, etc.  I did not get to travel during my internship.  My co-workers were a diverse group; within the developers there was 2 guys from India, 1 guy from Australia, 1 guy from the Philippians, and 1 woman from the Ukraine.  They provided me with interesting stories and experiences.  I didn’t work directly with any other interns, but there were 25 other interns in the program.  Twenty interns in the business program and 5 other interns in application delivery.  They were from schools on the East Coast.

Section 3.0 – Daily Activity Log Excerpts

My workdays at JPMorganChase fell into one of two categories: testing or meetings.  On Wednesday, July 17, 2002, a ‘meeting day’, I had six meetings that comprised my day.  I arrived at work at 8:00am and had a planning meeting for Finance Camp from 8:30am to 10:00am.  Finance Camp is summer program where interested high school students come to JPMorganChase to learning about banking, investing, and managing money.  The intern group was in charge of running the recreational activities, so we meet to plan the activities and discuss the schedule of events.  Immediately following the Finance Camp meeting I had Town Hall meeting for all of Private Banking: Technology and Operations at 10:00am.  A Town Hall meeting is where everyone in a department meets in the cafeteria to discuss the current issues faced by the department.  This particular Town Hall featured a speech from the global head of Private Banking: Technology and Operations, Veronique Wells.  After that, I lunch meeting from 12:00pm to 1:00pm with a few current full-time ICS (Internal Consulting Services) analysts to discuss their department.  The analysts were from the web-development group and they talked about the current projects that they were working on.  Next, I had a meeting with my manager, Stacey Conway, about the 529 College Savings Plan from 2:00pm to 3:00pm.  The 529 College Funds plan is a type of account where money made on mutual funds is not taxed if the money is used towards an accredited college or university.  The meeting was to discuss the implementation of the new type of account and what kind of testing I would be doing for it.  Finally, the last meeting was a Social Barbecue for Private Banking: Technology and Operations from 5:30-6:30.  JPMorganChase frequently has social barbecues held by various groups throughout the locations.  The barbecues are good to meet people from different groups within Private Banking: Technology and Operations and hear about what projects they are working on.  I would say about one-third of my days were ‘meeting days’.

On Wednesday, July 10, 2002, a ‘testing day’ I ran some test scripts in the morning and worked with developer and users to resolve some issues in the afternoon.  I arrive at work at 8:00am as I usually do and began my day by designing some test scripts for the Global Plus system.  One Monday, Wednesday and Friday we can enter checks and internal/related transfers and on Tuesday and Thursday we can enter money transfers (bank wires).  After I designed all the test scripts for the checks and internal/related transfers I entered the transactions and recorded the test scripts in the test log and recorded the issues in the issue log.  Here is a screen capture of the screen where I enter the transactions (Figure 2).

Figure 2: PBIS Internal Transfer Entry Screen

Next, I had my manger authorize all the transactions so I could run a batch to process all the transactions.  After the transactions were processed I reviewed the data in the DB2 tables using SQL queries on the IBM mainframe.  The program I used to enter the SQL queries to verify the data is call QMF and here is screen capture of the interface (Figure 3).

Figure 3: QMF Interface

On this occasion all the data was correctly formatted and place into the correct field within the database’s tables.  For the most part testing went smoothly throughout the project the only problems I ran into was scheduling time to discuss and resolve issues with the developers, users, and my manger.  Being persistent solved this problem.

After my morning of testing I had a lunch meeting with Ron Jackey, a Vice President for Enterprise Technology Services.  Enterprise Technology Services (ETS) is in charge of all the technology assets and infrastructure for the firm.  I talk to Ron about my interests in computer networking, how he got started out, and what advice he had for getting employed after graduation.  He provided some good advice and gave some additional contacts in the networking group.  After the lunch meeting I setup two other meetings with the contacts he gave me.  One meeting I setup was with a contracted employee from Verizon who plans and designs networks and the other meetings was with another contracted employee who was going to give me a tour of the networking infrastructure in the building.  I sought out these networking people because I was more interesting in their jobs then the project I was working on.  Meeting these people gave me valuable information and ideas on how to move forward with my career.

            Following my lunch meeting I worked with one the developers to test the payment system’s user interface.  I tested the interface to make sure all types of transactions could be entered properly.  Also, I checked to make sure all error messages we accurate when incorrect keys were pressed or incorrect data was entered.  When I found an issue I would make a print screen of the interface and discuss the issue with the developer.  When the developer made the appropriate changes to the program I would re-test the issue.  After working with developer I worked on some of my miscellaneous projects associated with the overall project.  One side project I have been working on was compiling the documentation around the systems we work so that new developers entering the group will have a reference source when they get started.  I read through achieved Lotus Notes databases, documentation files, and information the developers give me to compile the reference guide.  The other side project I have been working on is to search through the production, maintenance and test areas for programs that are obsolete and record information about their location so they can be removed.

Section 4.0 – Career Advice for Current CS Students

CS 345 and TSC 210 were very helpful in my internship and interview.  CS 139/239 was good for the programming background.  Must people I worked with have no certifications, but the networking people I sought out had, or were working towards, Novell and/or Cisco certifications.  The best thing you can do while still in school to start your professional career is to gain real experience in a lab and outside the classroom.  My advice is to try and get any internship you can even if it isn’t focused on what you want to do because the experience will be valuable nonetheless and it will look good on your resume.  Also, well in your internship meet and become friends with as many people as you can because the will help you out and can lead to job opportunities in the future.

Section 5.0 – Internship Value

The internship was very valuable for many reasons it provided real experience in the Information Technology world, it allowed to find out what I want to do with my career, it is an excellent addition to my resume, it allowed me to network myself, and it allowed to ask questions to people who are in the jobs I want to be it about their experiences and backgrounds.  The internship rekindled some interest in stock trading again.  After completing the internship I realized that computer programming is not the area of computer science that I want to pursue I career in upon graduation.  I realized that I need more interaction with people in my work environment and that I like building things from a hardware perspective more then a software perspective.

During the last week of the internship I had the opportunity to interview for full-time entry level training programs in the ICS Application Delivery Program.  On Wednesday August 7 I got to take a trip to the Wall Street office in New York City for interviews for the New York Application Delivery Program.  While there I had a technical interview, an HR interview and I had to take a technology test.  On Thursday August 8 I had four interviews at the Delaware location with different business groups.  I will fine out the results of these interviews at the beginning of the semester.

Links

Here is a list of links that I compiled related to my internship experience.

JPMorganChase – This is the website for JPMorganChase.

Private Bank – This is the website for the Private Bank, the business I worked for.

ICS Overview – This is the website for Internal Consulting Services which is the department that hires all the interns for both the Business Generalist Program and the Application Delivery Program

Application Delivery Overview – The is the part of the Internal Consulting Services website that particularly pertains to he Application Delivery Program