My MetLife Experience

My 2018 summer Internship at MetLife came to an end last Friday. Over the weekend I have been busy shifting back to Boston and now that I have settled here, I believe this is the right time for me to reflect back at my experience at MetLife over the last summer.

For most college students, summer generally rhymes with relaxation. A fruitful medium of escape from the hefty course load, late night studies, assignment deadlines and stressful examinations. Even-though I was tempted to travel back to my home in India over the summer, I resisted that temptation as I wanted to experience something different. I have always been passionate about playing my part in building the future. My never-ending pursuit to challenge myself in different environments and to learn new technologies, meet new people, led me to take up the data analytics internship at MetLife P&C.

The MetLife Way

MetLife, though the company’s strategy is changing, MetLife’s values remain rooted in its original philosophy-

We believe that by putting customers first, aiming to be the best and making things easier for our customers; we will succeed together as One MetLife. 

On my first day at MetLife Auto and Home, the newly renovated buildings gave me a vibrant and positive outlook towards the company. In par with the office environments that you notice in large technology companies and startups. Even though I was excited about my internship role and the team I was going to work with, the general insurance industry didn't paint a vibrant and progressive office workplace in my mind. This notion of mine was proved wrong the moment I stepped into the new MetLife Warwick office. The open office space spread the message of collaboration. Free gym membership for interns, large open patios, treadmill workstations, game rooms, high-tech meeting rooms, it was all there. Meeting and sharing experiences is what MetLife is all about. Taking this to the next level was the weekly lunch and learn sessions where interns got to interact with the senior leadership at MetLife. These included the then EVP Kishore Ponnavolu and people from different business areas like product management, sales, claims, human resources etc. These discussions helped me to learn more about the management in MetLife and their professional experiences. I believe these sessions will play a big part in shaping how I try to achieve success in my career. These were further strengthened by weekly huddles with past alumni interns, and sessions with other interns where we could discuss and update each other about our ongoing internship experience. Weekly "The Wall" sessions unlocked interactions between different teams and departments. MetLife always believes in the value of culture and rethinking ways to unlock engagement. Office coffee baristas, foosball and ping pong tables in the game rooms are few of those perks that comes with it. Over the past few months I have improved my ping-pong skills tremendously. Even-though being a PS4 fan, the X-box one with the limited edition controllers in the game room did catch my attention. This also enabled me to build deeper connections and friendships with my fellow interns and coworkers. And did I mention about all the MetLife swag merchandise I got over the last 3 months? \m/ If I start, I might need to write a whole new article about it.

Claims Department and the Team

The Claims department is one of the largest departments within MetLife Auto and Home, headed by Chief Claims Officer, Darla Finchum. Calvin Strong (VP), looked over the Claims and Operations within in the department. Everyone I met here was nice, welcoming and friendly to me. Even the common pizza lunch, and ice-creams within the department was a cherry on top of all this. Coming to my team, the Claim Advanced Analytics team consists of 6 people including myself. During the interview process, I talked with two members of the team. The way they explained me their approach to problem solving, having clear definition to the projects, and how I could contribute and learn from this internship experience mainly convinced me to take up this opportunity. 

My internship project's primary task was data-aggregation and building a descriptive model for the Net Promoter Score survey data. I directly reported to Deepak (Director, Claims Advanced Analytics), where he guided me through the business aspects of the NPS Deep Dive project and provided me with the resources required for me to finish the project. I am forever grateful to him for giving me this opportunity and constantly motivating me throughout this summer. Colin (Data Analyst) helped me with the required knowledge about the insurance industry terminologies and in collecting the data-sets through various sources. Blayne (Data Scientist) helped me through the data cleaning and modeling steps. I would also like to thank Calvin, Doug, Kathy and Lisa for their constant guidance and help over the last 3 months. Without this team, it would not have been possible for me to finish the project and achieve the complete internship experience that I hoped for.

Takeaways from the Project

1. Learned new technologies like Alteryx and got accustomed to new industry technology vendors.
2. Got valuable industry experience in data analytics and modeling.
3. Improved skills in R and Data modeling
4. Learned effective ways to collaborate among team members
5. Learned time management skills in finishing time critical tasks
6. Realized that the people you work with is as important as the work you do.
7. Presented my internship experience and project results to Chief Claims Officer, VP’s and members of the Claim's Department.

Takeaways from my Internship experience

1. Grew my professional network by meeting the EVP, VP’s, colleagues, and other fellow interns in a diverse MetLife workplace.
2. Learned collaboration among colleague from different teams.
3. Started saving and paid for my next semester tuition at college.
4. Learned more about the Insurance industry. 
5. Lived in a new city. Oh my Providence!
6. Made some bad-ass friends.

What's Next?

On what's lined up for me next, from tomorrow I am going to continue my part time internship as a Quality Assurance Intern at the Boston University IT services. I am really excited as over the last summer the BU IT services consolidated their office workspace into a larger single building. I am eager to see the new workplace. I am also taking 2 master's level courses (Machine Learning and Operating Systems) over the next semester at BU with the plan to graduate by January 2019. I hope everything goes by as awesome as it has for me in my last year in the US. Fingers Crossed.

-Amal