Chenlei Zhu, an Applied Analytics graduate student at Columbia’s School of Professional Studies (SPS), is one of the 21 students working this northern hemisphere summer in the Santiago Center-organized Global Virtual Internship Program. She is working with Universidad Católica’s Fundación Conecta Mayor, an NGO that promotes the social integration of elderly people by using technology to connect and accompany them.
As a data analytics intern in the virtual internship with Fundación Conecta Mayor, she is responsible for creating reports and dashboards leveraging SQL and Tableau to shape raw data into clear visualization for evaluating campaign effectiveness, while also defining and implementing metrics to conduct analysis to better understand user behavior for executing actions, including usage analysis, location distribution and relationships discovery within data. Zhu has also built a local server PostgreSQL database for the foundation to empower operational and exploratory analysis with SQL to boost data quality and analytical efficiency in the data department.
“This internship is a good opportunity for me, as I am looking to accumulate work experience after switching to the data field. It allows me to use technological skills learned from my Master’s program while continuing to develop my expertise in new areas of responsibility,” she says. “I consider this role a good match for my career path, which supports me in developing a deeper understanding on data analysis, increasing my competitiveness when I apply for a full-time job after graduation.”
