The metro doors slid open, and Gabriela Berrones ’29 emerged into a crowd of commuters weaving their way through the Shanghai station. A phrase she had heard from her dad echoed in her mind: “We’re all just trying to get to our next destination.”
It was true. Everyone seemed to be moving with certainty, and Berrones fell into step, matching the crowd’s quick pace, heading to her destination: the office where she was interning for six weeks this summer.
Berrones’ internship was part of the Trinity University Shanghai Summer Program, which sought to equip its 20 participants with the necessary skills to make informed business decisions in a global context. They were led by Finance and Business Analytics Professor Shage Zhang, Ph.D., and Business Administration Professor Yi Liu, Ph.D.
Berrones always knew she wanted to study abroad during her time at Trinity, and the opportunity to do so in Shanghai specifically appealed to her as a mathematical finance major.
Shanghai is a global financial center, like New York City, and Berrones’ internship let her see that sector up close and gave her hands-on experience working with software she will use in her future, such as Excel. As an assistant for a global marketing platform called Brandreward, she worked with spreadsheets, tracking client commissions and creating a master checklist to determine how efficient their current system was.
Though some of these processes were unfamiliar to her, her time at Trinity had prepared her for certain aspects of her role. Her experience in both the Real Estate Club and the Investments Club helped her network and conduct herself professionally.
However, there were some things in Shanghai that she couldn’t have known to prepare for; the fast-paced workplace was one of them. Berrones noticed how quickly people worked, with the office procedures unfolding like clockwork.
Working in such a demanding environment left Berrones with better habits, improving her time management and focus. She also learned to take the initiative, tackling assignments head-on.
“You had to strategize, plan on your own, and be able to adapt to any given situation based on your background knowledge,” she says.
Assignments were never spelled out for her, and that left Berrones with the responsibility and agency to figure things out by herself. Sometimes this meant trial and error, like when an especially challenging assignment required her to experiment in Excel to resolve issues with the spreadsheet. The challenge awakened Berrones to the reality that understanding the material from a textbook is very different than applying it in the real world.
“The internship was much more difficult,” she says. “You have to work around things.”
She did exactly that, coming up with a new formula that gave her the result she was looking for. Berrones presented her work to her supervisors, who praised her independent, innovative approach.
She left work that day feeling accomplished, confident in her abilities. She had gone into her internship with an established skill set and left feeling even more capable.
Berrones is considering a career as an investment banker, analyst, or payroll associate. No matter what she decides to do, she knows she will harness what Shanghai instilled in her to succeed.
Editor's Notes: In the above images, (left) Berrones smiles next to a river as she navigates through the historic town of Wuzhen. (right) Berrones poses in a Lego store, one of the many shops she explored while in Shanghai.