Austin Ellingwood ’18 enFocus Consulting Intern– I am working at enFocus this summer, which is a small consulting firm located in South Bend, Indiana. Me, as well as the other 15 interns, work at the Union Station Technology Center, where there is a nationally known data center that relays tons of information every day. I am working on the largest enFocus project yet, which is the St. Joseph County property tax project. I am doing an analysis of the various influence factors that go into the assessment of residential properties in St. Joseph County. In this analysis, I have honed my skills in excel, learned much about project management, and I have actually used python very frequently to further my data analysis.

My secondary project is another big one for enFocus, but this one is Pro bono. In my secondary project, I am working alongside 3 other interns to figure out why the enrollment of South Bend Community Schools has declined so much over the past 10 or so years. We have looked at a number of factors, including race, socioeconomic status, grade of school, and geographic location in South Bend. We will be reporting on our data to the South Bend Community School Corporation in the final week here.

This internship has really broadened my horizons on job searches after school. Since I am a rising senior, I really need to be on the lookout for opportunities. Because of my experience here at enFocus, I have looked into many Data Science roles, instead of strictly looking for software jobs. I believe that data science would be a fun and interesting field to go into, especially since it is still growing. Many companies are hiring for these positions, and I believe enFocus has aided me in preparing for a position like this, as well as opened my eyes to opportunities in that field.

I would like to thank the Lilly Endowment for giving me this wonderful opportunity! This internship has been eye-opening, and has really changed my perspective on consulting firms, and non-profit work as a whole. I have looked into other consulting firms because of the interesting experience I have had here. None of this would have been possible without the Lilly Endowment providing me with the opportunity to work here!

I have had an amazing summer with great Wabash guys here in South Bend, and have received valuable experience that many others have never gotten. I have worked on two very important projects that will have a large effect on enFocus’s future.