By Anthony Howard
Jackson State University College of Business (COB) students traveled to Manhattan, New York, to intern with S&P Global over the summer. Deidra Eure, a business administration doctoral student, Japhiah Watkins, a senior marketing major, and Alethia Chatfield, a senior accounting and entrepreneurship major,were among the company’s first cohort in the company’s new HBCU initiative.
Students from several HBCUs participated in the 10-week internship from June 5 until August 11. The students got to experience what it is like to work in the corporate office of a Fortune 500 company.
Eure worked in the corporate advocacy division and served as an advisor to undergraduate students in the program. She and the inaugural cohort were asked to construct a presentation to present at the end of the internship.
“The presentation highlighted why the HBCU initiative program should be embedded into the S&P Global hiring process and why they should seek talent from HBCUs,” Eure explained.
While working on the presentation, the cohort realized that S&P Global’s core values aligned with the core values of most HBCUs. The interns highlighted the company’s inclusivity efforts by recognizing the various People Research Groups (PRG) established to create a sense of place for the employees.
“They have PRGs that support different ethnic groups, the LGBTQ community, a women’s group, and even one for single parents or people who grew up in single-parent homes,” said Eure. “Anything that you can think of, they tried to cater to in order to make the atmosphere more inclusive.”
In the presentation, Eure and the interns compared the company’s use of PRGs to how HBCUs create a similar atmosphere of acceptance for minority students.
“Coming to an HBCU, you’re no longer a minority, and we bring something different to the table. Diversity in the workplace means our experiences can help cultivate some of the decisions made at S&P Global,” she added.
Eure encourages students to take advantage of internship opportunities during their undergraduate years to discover the likes and dislikes of a potential career. She urges that those opportunities are great ways to gain the experience companies expect new hires to have.
“When you graduate, and they’re looking for that two to three years of experience, that’s what they are looking for, those internships experiences. This is a time to discover who you are and what’s the right path for you,” said Eure.
Chatfield performed internal audit work during her internship. During that time, she discovered things about herself on both a personal and professional level.
“I like internal audit, I actually love it, but I want to explore my avenues a little more,” Chatfield shared. “The biggest thing I learned is that I need to break out of my introverted shyness. I realized you have to put yourself out there and that people are just people. They are not going grade you on every social interaction you have.”
This was Chatfield’s first internship opportunity, and she’s already looking forward to future opportunities in the spring semester. She has also been invited to return to S&P Global next summer to partake in one of the company’s graduate opportunities.
Watkins interned in the company’s commodity and insights department and researched potential sites to extract oil and natural gas. He also researched potential locations to open gas stations.
“When you think about marketing, you typically think about promotions. What I did was gather information and S&P uses, and investors and companies would purchase it,” Watkins shared.
The marketing major was excited and described his experience as “surreal” and credits the program for giving him real-world experience in marketing research. This was Watkins’ first internship opportunity, and he said it taught him the importance of patience.
“At first, I thought the work would be extremely challenging, and I wasn’t sure I was prepared for it until I started doing it. I realized it wasn’t hard at all, and I quickly adjusted,” Watkins said.