My Summer as an MBA Intern at Google

About the author: Jordan Ludwig (pictured to the left) is a second-year full-time MBA student at Foster.

Going into Foster, Google was high on the list of companies I wanted to work for after graduation.

I had lived in San Francisco before I came to Seattle, and I had a few friends that worked at Google. They all spoke highly of the company’s culture, and the challenging projects they were able to work on. Then I visited Google’s San Francisco office as part of the Foster Tech Club’s annual Bay Area Tech Trek, and I had a chance to experience it first-hand.

There, I saw a group of employees that all looked happy and engaged, even on a Friday afternoon. Everything I learned during that visit validated what my friends had told me, and I knew this was where I wanted to be.

Before I submitted my internship application, I met with the second-year students that had interned with Google the previous summer. I also set up bi-weekly meetings with Foster’s Career Management team. Together, they helped me understand what Google was looking for in applicants, what qualities were highly valued, and which of my experiences would best illustrate how I fit in with Google’s culture.

Last spring, I interviewed with teams in Ann Arbor and Mountain View. Then a week later, I received an offer.

I spent my summer working on the Managed Agency team, a part of the Google Marketing Solutions organization. My team worked with advertising agencies, helping them use Google’s powerful digital advertising solutions for their clients. I had three projects to work on over the course of my 12-week internship.

My main project was managing a new sales initiative for the approximately 80-person Managed Agency team, including designing and tracking success metrics, and presenting weekly updates to the team’s director. I managed the process with two other project managers in Mountain View and New York. I was also tasked with creating a Google Sheets-based budget projection tool to help the advertising agencies allocate advertising spend for their clients.

For my third project, I worked with a start-up company at Google’s internal incubator that is in the process of building digital marketplace for construction labor in Bangladesh. I conducted market research, competitive analysis, and prioritized product recommendations in two presentations to the company’s founder and leadership team.

During the summer, I leveraged several of the skills I had built and refined during my first year at Foster.

As a Foster MBA student, I was tasked with working closely with a diverse team. The same was true at Google, where I had to work cross-functionally with diverse teammates. Many of the people I collaborated with for my projects were from different organizations at the company, and even some of Google’s international offices.

At the end of my internship, I had to give a final presentation to my group’s entire leadership team – over 20 managers from across my organization. As I prepared for that presentation, I felt thankful for all the presentation practice and public speaking experiences I had during my first year at Foster.

Although the work was challenging, Google did an amazing job of making sure I was enjoying the internship. I became close friends with many of the other interns from schools including Stanford GSB and UCLA Anderson. I had a great time during the all-intern events — a Giants game at AT&T Park, a wine tasting day on Treasure Island, and boat cruise on the San Francisco Bay.

I’m thrilled to say I’ll be going back. After I graduate, I’ll return to Google to work on the same team. During my internship, I was exposed to a lot of interesting problems and opportunities, and I’m looking forward to helping my team tackle them.