How I Interned at JPMorgan Chase as a Pre-Med

In which a neuroscience major taught himself to program, competed at hackathons, learned to persevere, and worked for a consulting company and a bank.

I’ve been staring at a blank computer screen for the past 30 minutes. When my friend Shubha gave me the idea for this article, I thought, “Wow, what a great title!” Now all I can think of is, “Wow, what a great empty screen!” But, I digress; clearly, I managed to think of something. So, without further ado, I give you: How I Interned at JPMorgan Chase (and Accenture) as a Pre-Med, (without taking any collegiate-level computer science classes).

The Beginning

I suppose I should start at the beginning. After nearly 24 hours in labor (no, that is not a joke), my mother brought me into — oops, sorry… went a little too far back. I’ll skip ahead a bit. When I was in fifth grade, my parents bought me the original Lego NXT robot. I played with it for hours, using the piece of software that came with it to make it do earth-shattering things like follow a black line and push a small ball along the ground. When I got bored, I figured out how to use a programming language, Robot-C, to accomplish slightly more complex tasks. Despite the apparent insignificance of such feats, these accomplishments were a big deal to me; they were my first steps into the world of programming. It was as they say: one small step for man, one giant leap into the delightful yet utterly maddening abyss of a black hole that is computer science for me.

From there, I moved to teaching myself Java, and much to the delight (or dismay, still unclear) of the CS teacher at my high school, signed up for the only “formal” computer science class I have ever taken. I was a freshman at the time — she still texts me almost every year to remind me of the time she had to cancel class because I vomited in her trash can (and subsequently became a hero to the upperclassmen).

Through the years that followed, I taught myself Python, R, Ruby, C#, Swift, and eventually the various languages and frameworks of web development (more on this later). I won’t rehash what came next (see this post if you’re curious), but essentially I left for college and changed my major maybe five different times as my desires to do software and medicine battled themselves out in my head in various libraries and dorm lounges with my procrastination buddy Sharbel at 4 AM. Regardless, I continued to try to learn what I could when I had time, and I competed in Uncommon Hacks, UChicago’s annual hackathon. Still unsure of most things, and excited to hopefully make a few drops of money in the literal ocean that is the cost of my education up until this point, I decided to look for a software development internship.

The Internship, Pt. 1: A Start-Up

So it turns out that most large companies don’t like to hire college freshmen with no formal education or experience — who would’ve thunk it? Anyway, at this point, I barely had a resume, I didn’t have any connections, and I didn’t really know who to talk to. I reached out to someone who I’d taken a college course with while I was in high school, and he put me in touch with someone who worked at a start-up accelerator. She helped me get into contact with various (albeit very small) start-ups looking for some help to get started. Some people responded to me, most did not, but I eventually found a start-up that seemed like it would be interesting to work with. Why do I think they decided to let me work with them? Cheap Labor. I jest (sorta) — but I think a large part of it was because despite my lack of formal experience, I still had a portfolio. Lesson 1: Build a Portfolio. The best way to prove to people that you are at least semi-semi-competent is to have one. Use Github, Gitlab, your own personal site, whatever — start building things and sharing them them with the world. I still code when I have time (see covid19.georgesaieed.com for something I worked on with my friend Ellen this past weekend)!

Remember how I told you that a portfolio could help prove your competency? Yeah, well in my case I was still, um… not very competent. They wanted me to design and build V1 of a what was basically a full-blown web application… and I had never designed or built any websites prior to that point. So in the three days leading up to the start of the “internship,” I taught myself some fundamentals of design theory, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (see here for my blog post on the resources I used if you’re interested), and dove in. Lesson 2: Get used to not knowing things, to learning on the fly, and to spending lots of quality time with your newest best friend, StackOverflow. The rest of the summer came with a lot of uncertainty, but I walked out knowing more than just a little about web design and development, two things which helped me land the rest of my future internships.

The Internship, Pt. 2: Accenture

My second year of undergrad came around, and I settled on majoring in neuroscience as a pre-med (almost as cliché as majoring in biology, I know, sorry). I decided I wanted to try to work in software during the rest of my summers regardless — I thought it would still provide an educational and entertaining experience. Excited that I was no longer a freshman, I applied to 20ish tech companies and waited to hear back. A month later, I got super pumped when… not a single company responded! Wait, what? Lesson 3: When you’re starting your search for internships, don’t get disheartened if you don’t get a response. And start applying early! Most people apply to 50+ internships only to get a few offers; while it’s not the most fun process, apply to enough places and you’ll get at least a few responses.

Lesson 4: Think outside the box. I decided to apply to more internships, but also to try to think of companies that weren’t obviously “tech” firms, like consulting firms, airlines, newspapers (the NY Times has an awesome Interactive team), and government agencies. I also used my school’s job application platform, Handshake, and submitted my resume to a few open positions there. Lesson 5: Use all the resources at your disposal to your advantage. Most schools have avenues for helping students land internship — look for them and use them! You will almost always get a response from these openings, even if the answer is still a no. After applying to nearly 50 companies, I ended the calendar year with two offers, both of which were from government agencies that shall not be named.

Sometime in January, I received an interview from Accenture, a large technology consulting firm. I knew very little about consulting, and thus did not know what to expect, but I did what reading I could about the company and about consulting interviews and I went for it. Lesson 6: Most consulting/tech companies just want to see that you can think through a problem logically and come to a solution — even when that solution isn’t completely right. I’m not a recruiter, obviously — but that’s the sense I’ve gotten from my interactions with these companies. So be willing to learn on the fly, and think out loud; sometimes, you might “screw up” the interview but still move on. And this goes without saying, but be personable! It can only help you.

I ended up deciding to work with Accenture that summer — I had a brilliant team of full-time co-workers and interns who were all learning new technologies at the same time, so it made for some hilarious antics and an incredible learning experience.

The Internship, Pt. 3: JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Okay, so remember how I told you I participated in UChicago’s hackathon my first year? Well, I neglected to mention that the app I built won JPMorgan’s “best designed” award. In the process, I met two software developers from the company who gave me their contact information and informed me that they typically only hired rising seniors. Like an idiot, I completely forgot about them until September of my junior year, two weeks before I had to respond to my return offer at Accenture. Lesson 7: Don’t be an idiot.

That year, I had also applied to more companies (this time almost 70+), and been fortunate enough to land interviews at Twilio, Pinterest, and Palantir. I also had recruiters from Amazon and a few other companies reach out to me on LinkedIn. None of them ended in internship offers, and I was pretty disheartened — I had loved Accenture, but also wanted the opportunity to try something new. I remembered JPMorgan, I sent out an email, and I waited. I ended up doing a single phone interview (I’m pretty sure I skipped a few rounds because of the hackathon), and the day before I had to respond to Accenture’s return offer I found out I’d gotten the internship. The real Lesson 7: Go to events. Meet people. Connect with them. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and contact people! The worst they can do is not respond (well, assuming you’re respectful).

The Internship, Pt ∞: Medical School

And then, I went to medical school. Easy peasy.

Definitely kidding — but that’s another story for between now and before I’m done with my education (only 6–10 more years left until I’m an attending physician)!

Lessons Learned: A Summary

There you have it — a pretty odd path to take to end up interning at a consulting firm and a bank, especially as a pre-med, but I’m a firm believer that you can teach yourself most things and do anything you put your mind to. The internet is a pretty incredible thing for that. So, as you help healthcare professionals keep people safe from COVID-19 by staying home, use some of your extra time (if you have any) to try and help out those in need, do some reading, teach yourself something new, or even build something.

Lesson 1: Build a Portfolio.
Lesson 2: Get used to not knowing things, to learning on the fly, and to spending lots of quality time with your newest best friend, StackOverflow.
Lesson 3: When you’re starting your search for internships, don’t get disheartened if you don’t get a response.
Lesson 4: Think outside the box.
Lesson 5: Use all the resources at your disposal to your advantage.
Lesson 6: Most consulting/tech companies just want to see that you can think through a problem logically and come to a solution — even when that solution isn’t completely right.
Lesson 7: Go to events. Meet people. Connect with them. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and contact people! The worst they can do is not respond (well, assuming you’re respectful).