ESU Math Students Complete Summer Internship in Minneapolis

Three East Stroudsburg University mathematics majors completed internships at Allianz Life Insurance Company in Minneapolis, Minn. this summer. The students gained invaluable real-world experience alongside fellow college students for three months, and for some, it was the first time they lived several states away from home.

Seniors Deken Upright, Aaron Zaso, and David Walker worked in different departments but collectively built on the foundational knowledge they acquired at ESU. Upright, of Montoursville, Pa., was part of the admin testing team – “similar to a systems analyst. My team validated the policy values going into the admin system were correct, so policyholders got the accurate values they were entitled to,” he said. “I worked mainly on the annuity products, determining whether the payments policyholders were receiving were calculated correctly, as well as the other benefits we offer.”  The work appealed to his meticulous nature. “I’m really into the problem solving, analytical side of things. My internship included a lot of investigative work, so we’d often find mismatches in the information. When you find the discrepancy, you find the trail to discover what’s going wrong to learn what needs to be adjusted or corrected,” he said.

Zaso, of Nazareth, Pa., was part of the modeling team—a group of people writing code for Allianz’s reserving models so the insurance company can pay out its liabilities. “The simulation model runs a lot of different scenarios that could happen, and the modelers write the code for that model. I did a lot with translating new riders—additional benefits on the annuity—onto our models. We translate our changes into pseudo-code which our modelers would understand,” he said. “Something I learned is to always be organized, and the importance of keeping everything in one place so you can get back to something very quickly if you need to.”

David Walker, a mathematics and computer science major from Stroudsburg, Pa., was a programmer on the modeling team. “I worked in the app development team for actuarial modeling,” he explained. “I was working on a distributed job scheduling system. All these actuaries had huge models they needed to run. I broke the model down into several pieces that could run on a bunch of computers.”

The students were recruited by ESU alum Anthony Walker ’17 during a recent trip to ESU. Walker is now a senior actuarial analyst on the modeling team at Allianz Life. “One thing I love about this company is it’s big on recruiting,” he said. “A lot of the actuaries go back to their alma maters to recruit, and when I got this opportunity, I jumped at the chance.” An ESU Math Club meeting served as a recruiting event. “I collected resumes, spoke with the students a bit and did mini-interviews,” adding, “I can basically guarantee the students I recruit will get an interview. I can’t guarantee they’ll be hired, but my say carries some weight.”

After hours, the interns enjoyed exploring everything Minneapolis had to offer. ESU’s students were part of a group of approximately 25 interns who lived at an extended stay hotel courtesy of Allianz Life all summer. “It was really fun,” Zaso said. “There wasn’t a time when there wasn’t something going on. It was my first time in a major city and being west of Pennsylvania. It was different for me.”

The combination of campus resources—particularly the Career Development Center—and relevant coursework prepared them for their internships. “There was a course called math modeling that helped me prepare to use math in the real world,” Walker said. “It really helped me in the work I did at my internship.” Zaso visited the Career Development Center several times before submitting his resume. “In my sophomore year, I went to the center many times. I had them rip apart my resume about four times. When I sent my resume to Anthony, he said it was good and not to change anything. I had a lot of my math classes that prepared me for the rigor of taking an actuarial exam,” he said.

Internships are often a step toward a full-time opportunity and should be explored early. “Get an idea of what you want. Your internship could shape your last few years of school because you’ll have an idea of where you’re going,” Anthony Walker said. “In the actuarial profession, lots of companies have this philosophy that full-time hires come from the interns. Internships are the path to a full-time role. It’s not impossible to get a full-time position without the internship, but it’s less likely.”

All three students said their internships solidified their post-graduation plans. “It confirmed my interest in the actuarial side. It was really cool to be there and find out that it’s what I want to do in the future,” Zaso said. “I was hesitant to go to Minneapolis at first because I wasn’t sure if that’s where I wanted to be long-term. I would say to other students just go, even if it may not be where you see yourself long-term.”

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